Shawnee Post 193 Located at 2800 W Main Street has for the last 4-plus years quietly been giving out Pizzas. I mean a lot of pizzas! You see in 2022, during the late phase of the COVID crisis, one of our members, Don McDonald, had a connection to get pizzas once a week from one of our local charities, as it was more than they could use. He approached Steve Trout at Shawnee Post and asked if we could use the pizzas and of course, he said yes. The first load was approximately sixty pizzas and some assorted other items. Don and Steve dropped some off to people that we know were a little short on food and brought the rest to the Post. We had no idea what to do with them. We put them in the refrigerator, gave out what we could, and yes, some of them went to waste. But the pizzas were still coming every week!
(Pizza Ambassador)
SAL Member, Dale Capito went to work. As he traveled the neighborhood he would run into people that could use a little extra food sometimes to make it through the week. He invited them to stop by the Shawnee Post on Friday afternoons. Next, SAL Member, Matt Riggs stepped up. He wanted to give a hand with further developing the distribution of our Pizza stache. He recognized that our Post was also a school bus stop. He let it be known that we had free pizzas and found more people that could use them; needed a little extra food to make it through the weekend. We never posted or advertised that we had them to give out, word of mouth did it for us. From that point on Matt Riggs became our Pizza Ambassador for the Post/Neighbor-hood. From time to time, we would get other types of food, but always the pizzas were the mother lode and what the people wanted as it was ready to eat. He gave out all that we would get each week, with almost none going to waste.
I would estimate that in the 4-plus years we have given out more than 10K pizzas! We would routinely get 30-90 pizzas a week. As always, it is sad when a good thing must come to an end. It was a good run and was well appreciated by all that stopped by the Post weekly to pick one or two up to tie them over on their grocery bill. We cannot thank everyone at the Post that helped make this possible, there are too many to thank but we especially want to thank the following for their dedica-tion. Steve Trout for picking them up weekly. The Bartenders for not shooting us in the beginning of this and then helping each week when needed. Dale Capito for recognizing a need in the area surrounding the Post. Matt Riggs for organizing and putting the distribution plan
together. Bobby Yeager, always ready to lend a hand and get the word out on the street. And of course, Don McDonald, for ask-ing us to help and his connection at the local charity. All in all, it has been a good run, and we feel that a lot of people benefited from our pizza windfall. We were glad to be a part of it as we are Veterans Helping Veterans & Veterans Helping Our Community. If you would like to be a member of Shawnee Post 193, SAL, Auxiliary, or our Social Club we would love to have you as part of our team!
