In the year since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, chef José Andrés and World Central Kitchen, the humanitarian relief group he founded, estimates more than 120,000 volunteers have helped prepare and serve meals to nearly 210 million Ukrainians.

Those are staggering numbers until José, who spoke Tuesday night at the Guilford College Bryan Series, put those numbers into perspective. “How do you feed so many people?” he asked. “It starts with serving one meal. One meal gets you moving and you go from there.”

José’s talk in front of nearly 2,000 attendees at Greensboro’s Steven Tanger Center for the Performing Arts was, at turns, tent revival evangelism, home-spun stories of his childhood and common sense advice.

“Big problems have very simple solutions,” he said. “We need to be telling our politicians this all the time when they start talking and pointing fingers. The key is to make a decision and act on it. If you make a mistake, you learn and correct yourself, but at least you are acting.”

World Central Kitchen started when José, who was 40 at the time, mobilized chefs and restaurants in the aftermath of the 2010 earthquake that devastated Haiti and has continued deploying resources to catastrophes ever since.

This was not a twist José expected for his career when he was a young chef in Barcelona, or building an empire of 40 restaurants, or earning Michelin stars, or parading his magnetic personality and Spanish accent on cooking shows.

José says he was once a planner, a word he no longer views as a compliment. “(WCK) is an organization that has no plan and that’s what makes us successful,” he says.

“What did we learn from COVID? That nothing goes as planned. If we only make thousands of plans in our lives, what happens when we don’t have a plan for something we didn’t see coming? Everybody freezes.”

In 13 years of rushing to humanitarian disasters around the globe, World Central Kitchen had never been to a war until last year. José was scheduled to speak in the Bryan Series last April, but had to back out after Russian troops invaded.

There were setbacks in getting relief aid to regions throughout Ukraine in the midst of bombing and gunfire, but José says WKC has embraced those challenges. “When we put the plans away and learn how to adapt, adaptation always wins the day,” he said.

In addition to a video presentation and remarks, Jose participated in a moderated conversation with Stephen Yalof, President and CEO of Tanger Outlets.

The Bryan Series wraps up its season with Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter Ronan Farrow speaking Tuesday, April 4. Tickets for the Bryan Series are on sale at the Tanger Center Box Office (Tuesday - Saturday, noon to 5 p.m) and Ticketmaster.com.