What started as a way to help a local family in need has now turned into the biggest fundraising effort in the country for pediatric brain cancer, the nation’s deadliest cancer in children. Since its inception in 2009, Hogs for the Cause has raised millions for families impacted by the deadly disease and the hospitals trying to help them. At the heart of the festival is Rene Louapre and Becker Hall, who continue the fight and the expansion of Hogs each year – which sees more teams, more food and more fun all in the name of a worthy cause. Louapre and Hall share just what the impact of the festival looks like, as well as some of their favorite parts of the fun each year.
Q: For those who may not know, how was Hogs for the Cause born?
HALL: Rene and I grew up on the same street together, and after college, came back to New Orleans. Rene was writing a food blog and was introduced to a chef’s son who had an inoperable brain tumor. We had already had plans to do a pig roast. I went to school at University of South Carolina, where we did pig roasts before every football game, and [we] thought it was crazy that in New Orleans, arguably the greatest food city in the world, [we] didn’t really do much barbecue or pig roast outside of southwest Louisiana. So we thought, let’s have some fun and do this. And then we kind of put two and two together. That might be a good opportunity to raise money for this child, the son of somebody that also went to the same high school as us. It turned out that was a pretty good idea. We had about 100 to 200 of our friends show up that first Hogs for the Cause. We raised about $7,500 (which we thought was an immense amount of money at the time) and got a lot of good positive feedback and decided, look, we’re ego megalomaniacs, let’s build this bigger and better than ever. But other than that, we got to meet the child – his name was Ben – a couple months after the fest. And it was really that experience that drove us to really build this charity into what it is today.
LOUAPRE: Everyone who has asked us why it’s called Hogs for the Cause, and not something like hogs for cancer. We really did think that we would, you know, in our naivete thought, ‘Oh, well, we’ll just raise money for this family this year, and then we’ll next year, it’ll be like, for dogs that don’t have four paws or whatever.’ We would find some other charity. And it just kind of shows the power of a connection that we had, and also educating ourselves on the need for these families. That’s what’s really driven so much of our growth, whether it be on the festival side, and, you know, growing this event to where it is, or on the on the charitable side and reaching out and making partnerships with hospitals around the country, to just try and do more for families battling these diseases.
Q: What keeps you motivated/passionate to grow each year?
HALL: I’m happy to because it’s the demand for what we do – pediatric brain cancer is the number one terminal cancer in children. I can’t tell you how many hospitals tell me every single day, “I wish there were more charities like you. I wish there were more Hogs for the Cause.” And we’re getting hit from all 50 states. There’s nobody who does what we do for the number one terminal cancer in children. That’s pretty motivating. I hate telling people this, but every day I’m dealing with somebody having the worst day of their life. So that’s motivating. We have three healthy kids of our own. We’re very fortunate. I think what Hogs does, it gives all these people involved on teams, make some go look in the mirror and realize how fortunate they really are. And, you know, we’re out here to help people. That’s what we do.
Louapre: I echo that and would say, we have built with our partners and our teams and everybody a really good strong sense of community. We have people who have been helping out at our event who lost their child, like the mother of the first child we ever did this for. She helps out; the mother of little Ben helps out in our event. You can tell that it’s an important thing to her to do this. And it’s an important thing for us to do this. And it’s important thing for our teams to come in from all across the country and raise money. And it’s important for the city. And it’s important for our hospital partners. So that feeling of have a really great unified team helping out and as Becker said, you know, realize that hey, even when it’s rainy, or things don’t go your way or something goes wrong, you know, we’re still the lucky ones, right? Like, we’re still the people who are going to get to go home, and our kids are safe, and our kids are healthy. That’s a big driver for everybody at Hogs. [You] also have to throw the most kick ass party. Look, we’re getting older, but we still like to have a good time, somebody’s got to throw that party.
Q: Did you expect the festival – and your giving back efforts – to ever reach the level y’all are at now?
LOUAPRE: It’s a lot like a kid, like, you know, to us is still like a baby, this is still a little kid. I mean, I think we knew where we could go with it. The tough part is after the event wraps, we’ve got all these ideas, and we’ve got all these ways to improve for the next year. And then you’ve kind of got to wait a whole year to do it. We keep growing and the event keeps evolving. We know what we want to be and we know what we are, which is the nation’s premier pediatric brain cancer outreach charity. And I think as long as we keep that as our North Star, I think we’re going to continue to evolve and get better.
HALL: It was fortunate timing too you know, there was a lot of luck. It wasn’t a very saturated festival time 16 years ago. But yeah, the first couple years no, we didn’t see it being like this. Year Three, we started going okay, maybe we got something here. Now in year 16. We go What the hell do we do? What do We get ourselves into?
Hogs for the Cause April 5 & 6 UNO Lakefront – Visit HogsFest.org for tickets or to donate.
