Back in 2015, Mike and Jennifer Stevens opened a pizza restaurant in Fargo, North Dakota. Months after the opening, they noticed a homeless man sitting in front of the window of a gas station for hours at a time.

“My daughters and I were looking out of the window and saying should we get him something,” Jenny recalled. “We brought him a pizza. He was so thankful and so gracious. Then we ended up doing it again for a different person. And again for a different person. And again for another person.”

One year later, the Stevens family realized that homeless people were going through their dumpster looking for food. That’s why Mike put up a sign in the window of the restaurant that said, “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.”

The family soon went even further by giving away entire pizzas to people who asked for them. Though Mike was diagnosed with leukemia during that time period, he continued trying to facilitate his restaurant’s partnership with a local homeless shelter in Fargo.

The Stevens family started freezing entire pizzas so that volunteers could pick them up and deliver them to the shelter. Soon, two more shelters teamed up with them as well!

Since starting this mission, the family has given away approximately 142,000 slices of pizza at a value of $70,000. Sadly, Mike passed away in December of last year, but Jenny and her children have continued to do this in his memory.

“He really, really pursued this,” she said. “It’s a small thing that we can do to bring a big difference in their day and it’s just kept going. You have to come together to help each other out. We just do it because it seems like the right thing to do.”

The Stevens family is raising money for the free food through GoFundMe.