I own a small pizza shop. Deliveries mostly. Late nights. Got a call around 9 PM. Woman's voice. Shaking. "Can you deliver to the Sunrise Motel on Harper Street?" "Yes ma'am. What would you like?" Long silence. Then, "What can I get for five dollars? I have three kids." Five dollars wouldn't even cover one pizza. "We have a special tonight. Family deal. Three large pizzas, breadsticks, sodas. Five dollars." No such special existed. She started crying. "Really?" "Really. We'll be there in thirty minutes."

Made the pizzas myself. Added wings. Cookies. Juice boxes. Drove it over personally. She opened the door. Bruises on her face. Three little kids behind her. Terrified. "Thank you. You don't understand what this means." Started happening every week. She'd call. I'd have a "special" ready. Other drivers caught on. Started doing it too. Different families. Different motels. Three months later she came to the shop. Different person. Confident. Had a job. An apartment. Handed me two hundred dollars. "For all the specials. I knew they weren't real." I tried to refuse. "Please. Let me pay it forward."

That money started the Pizza Forward Fund. When someone calls from a shelter or motel desperate for food, we use it. Five years later, we've delivered over nine hundred "specials." That woman? She's a social worker now. Refers families to us all the time. Her oldest just started high school. Works in my shop on weekends. "Because you fed us when we had nothing."

—Tony Morales, Indiana