Hogs for the Cause: A Barbecue Festival Fights Back Against Pediatric Cancer

Thirty thousand attendees. Over four tons of pork. Four thousand people competing to craft the best barbecue. Elaborate three-story booths. A lineup of 20 musical acts. “There’s a lot of different analogies that people use—the Burning Man of barbecue, things like that,” says Hogs for the Cause co-founder and CEO Becker Hall. “But it’s really just a celebration and it’s a lot of fun.”

That fun is in the service of a very worthy cause. The 2026 Hogs for the Cause festival, held April 10-11 in New Orleans, raised over $6.6 million to benefit those affected by pediatric brain cancer and other serious childhood illnesses. “Here in New Orleans and throughout the Southeast and South Coast, I think a lot of people know Hogs for the Cause because of our massive barbecue and music festival,” Hall explains. “But once you get outside of that area, you know us for what we’re really about, which is all the pediatric cancer work we do around the country.”

The New Orleans-based 501(c)(3) organization began as a fundraising cook-off in 2009. Hall and co-founder Rene Louapre wanted to raise money to benefit Ben Sarrat Jr., a five-year-old who had been diagnosed with incurable brain cancer, and his family. The duo decided to make their casual fundraiser into an annual event after meeting Sarrat and learning about the impact of pediatric brain cancer. (According to the CDC, brain cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in children.)

Seventeen years later, the Hogs for the Cause festival is a two-day event, with Friday focused on bacon and wings and Saturday devoted to pork barbecue.

Becker Hall, Founder and CEO, Hogs for the Cause.

“It’s not what you think of when you think of barbecue events. It also has a little bit of New Orleans creativity and flair on it,” says Hall. The competition has three main categories (all pork-based): whole hog, ribs, and Boston butt/shoulder. “Then we have a fourth category called porkpourri. That is anything goes pork, and that’s one that people really want to win. It could be anything from desserts to—we have a very rich Vietnamese food tradition here in New Orleans—so you see a lot of banh mi.”

“There have been some amazing things in there,” he continues. “One of the best things I ate was a pig ear snowball. It was unbelievable: the unctuous, umami fat flavor of the ear with this sweet base with evaporated milk in it. It was like lardons as the salty component of a sweet dish. It was just phenomenal.”

All that barbecue has done a lot of good: to date, Hogs for the Cause has donated over $18.5 million. The organization has funded on-site housing at Children’s Hospital New Orleans, Our Lady of the Lake Children’s Hospital, and Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital, providing a free place to stay for the families of children undergoing treatment. Hogs for the Cause has also contributed to expand and improve pediatric oncology care capacity at hospitals including Children’s Health Dallas, Children’s of Mississippi, and Children’s Hospital Colorado.

“Every year, we’re just getting bigger and trying to make more impact where it’s needed most within the whole pediatric cancer space—all through barbecue,” says Hall.

The organization has also provided direct grants to over 2,300 families with children battling brain cancer. “We have a great network of relationships with social workers at most of the children’s hospitals in the country. If a child is diagnosed with pediatric brain cancer, then that social worker will analyze and identify their needs, and determine if they’re in financial distress,” Hall explains. “Typically, what you’ll see is a family that has to travel a long way to get to the hospitals for their children’s treatment, they have to stay in hotels. A lot of time these monies are going towards those types of expenses and any other kind of medical expenses that they’re incurring as a result of their child’s diagnosis.”

“The festival’s one weekend out of the year, but we are raising money and helping these families all year round,” he continues. “We often say we’re not a festival that supports a charity. We’re a charity that just happens to have a festival.”