When the restaurant chain Little Caesars says “Pizza Pizza” in their television commercials, they mean it, and one of their franchises in Fargo, North Dakota decided to put their money where their mouth is. It all started when Jenny and Mike Stevens opened up their Little Caesars franchise in May 2015. A short time after opening, they and their two adult daughters, Sunday Stevens and Paige Loftus, saw a man sitting outside of a gas station nearby for two hours. Jenny says that she and her daughters were looking out the window and said that they should get him something. Naturally, the thing they thought of giving him was a pizza. Who wouldn’t enjoy a pizza? They said he was incredibly gracious and thankful.
The good feeling they got from giving away that one pizza prompted them to keep doing it. So they did it over and over, anytime someone needed food. By the summer of the following year, the family realized that someone was sifting through their dumpster looking for food every day. Mike put a sign up in the window that read:
“To the person going through our trash for their next meal, You’re a human being and worth more than a meal from a dumpster. Please come in during operating hours for a couple of slices of hot pizza and a cup of water at no charge. No questions asked.”
Even though the sign says “a couple of slices,” the family just gives someone a whole pizza if they come in asking for their pizza donation.
Facebook, Jenny Stevens
By November of 2016, the family was working with one homeless shelter in the area to give away more free pizza. Mike was battling leukemia at the time, but he never lost his purpose to help and give to others. Before long, the Stevens family extended their donation reach to three homeless shelters and even put together a program to provide free pizzas every week at no charge. Jim’s question was, “We have more than we need and these people are struggling to find their next meal, so why not help?” This story has a sad ending. Mike lost his battle with leukemia, dying on December 1, 2017. He was 66 years old. However, he made a difference in people’s lives and his legacy lives on because Jenny continues the cause that her gave her husband so much passion in the last years of his life. Jenny said, “He really, really pursued this.”
The family bakes the pizzas, then freezes them before shipping them out to the shelters. That way, the shelters can use them when they need them, and volunteers come every week to pick them up. One of the shelters has incorporated the pizzas into a special evening every week, making it pizza and movie night. Since that first pizza they gave away, the Stevens family has given away more than 142,000 slices of pizza, which is more than 17,000 pizzas. That’s a lot of love.
Featured image: Wikipedia and Jenny Stevens
