Retired Air Force
Master Sgt. Mark Evans says the first thing that comes to mind when
he’s asked about his non-profit work is a group of special operations
troops.
“It was a team of guys, 17 of them, way out
down range of the combat area,” Evans said. “They didn’t
really believe it was coming.”
What was coming was
the fulfillment of a wish they’d made for the upcoming Fourth of July
holiday: Pizza from home.
On that day, a low-flying plane flew into sight and dropped something big — right into a nearby
body of water.
“And these are special ops,”
Evans said. “So, of course, they jumped in and swam out to get
it. They pulled it out of the water and opened it up. It was all
packed in plastic and dry ice; not one pizza was destroyed. There was
100 pizzas in there for 17 guys.”
Uno’s
Chicago deep-dish style pizza, to be exact. In its nine years,
Evans’ non-profit Pizzas4Patriots has shipped more than 165,000
pizzas to troops overseas for the Fourth of July and Super Bowl.
This past Super Bowl Sunday was no exception, as more than 1,000
pounds of pie were delivered to troops in Afghanistan and Kandahar
during so-called “Operation Pizza Bowl.”
Pizzas4Patriots’
goal is to provide a little slice of home – literally – to
military members both domestically and abroad.
“It’s all
paid for by donations,”
Evans said.
The idea was born on July 4, 2008, when
Evans’ son, watching soldiers in Iraq on television eating Meals
Ready to Eat, or MREs, asked if they could have pizza delivered to
them. Evans, who had made some well-connected friends during his own
military service, contacted then-Gen. David Petraeus and said he’d
like to send pizzas to Iraq.
“The
first delivery was 2,000,” Evans recalled. “The second
delivery was 10,000. The next was 13,000.”
In 2012,
Pizzas4Patriots
entered the Guinness World Records with a
delivery of 30,000 pizzas to U.S. forces at Kandahar Airfield, Bagram
Airbase and Camp Bastion, Afghanistan.
Two annual
deliveries to U.S. troops are now a regular event for
Pizzas4Patriots. The pizzas are carefully packed and shipped
half-baked. And though soldiers have devised creative methods for
reheating the pies, including the use of Humvee engines, most are
prepared in field mess kitchens.
Evans said that asking troops
he meets for the first time if they’ve ever had pizzas delivered is
always a good icebreaker.
“And then
they’ll say ‘yes’,” Evans said. “And then they’ll tell
their stories. And believe me, there’s going to be
tears.”
Pizzas4Patriots is hoping to again break
records for deliveries this July 4, Evans said. As with each mass
delivery, it will need a name, and during his talk with the Gulf
News Journal, Evans tossed out some ideas and eventually landed
on “Operation America is Great” as one he will suggest
to the Pizzas4Patriots’ board.
“Write in there that
you had a part in brainstorming – no, facilitating – that idea,”
Evans said. “That’s how you do it. Start a fire, change
someone’s life. There’s nothing better than helping someone else
reach that next level in life. I’m telling you, it’s better than
money, to go out and do what these soldiers are trying to do, to make
the world a better place.”
