Sometimes you come across a place, or people, that leave a lasting impression. Occasionally, it’ll happen more than once.
A couple living in Indianapolis only spent a couple years living in Battle Creek, MI, but one pizza place stayed forever on their minds.
Over 20 years ago, Julie and Rich Morgan would get take-out from Steve’s Pizza.
Ever since moving away from the area, the couple would try other pizzas, but none ever came close to Steve’s Pizza.
“It’s just the best pizza, and we’ve never had anything as good,” Julie Morgan said, adding, “We’d try new pizza as a whole family and measure it against Steve’s.”
Though it had been quite some time, for Julie’s 56th birthday the Morgans planned a trip to head back to Michigan and hit up Steve’s Pizza.
Steve’s Pizza was important to this family for so many reasons, with Julie saying, “We were young and money was tight but every pay day, Rich would pick up Steve’s Pizza for dinner.”
Unfortunately, Rich, who’d been battling a form of salivary gland cancer, wound up hospitalized in the ICU before the trip could happen, being told he only had days, maybe weeks, to live.
Saturday evening, Julie’s father David decided to give Steve’s Pizza a calls.
“I thought maybe just some contact from Steve’s Pizza, maybe a note, I thought I might be asking too much, but I contacted them,” Said David.
David spoke with one of the managers, Dalton Shaffer, who decided not to send a note to send a note to the Morgans, but break their carry-out only rule and DELIVER two pies of the couple’s favorite pizza, three hours away!
Shaffer, who’s only 18 and the nephew of the pizza shop’s owner, hit the road after closing the store a little after 10 PM with a pepperoni and a pepperoni and mushroom pizzas in tow.
“I just wanted to do that for them,” Shaffer shares. “I just wanted to make them happy.”
He arrived to the hospital around 2:30 AM and met with David and the Morgans’ children.
They offered to put Shaffer up for the night, but he had to turn them down because he had to be at work the next day.
Shaffer wasn’t planning on letting anyone know about his trip, sharing, “I wasn’t going to tell anyone about it. I didn’t even tell my uncle or anything when I left for Indiana.” He added, “I just hope people could keep that family in mind and pray for them.”
Julie and Rich didn’t even find out about the whole thing until they woke up the next morning, with Julie saying, “The kids all came in and told us, and I cried and couldn’t believe it. I was incredulous.”
