‘Epic pizza delivery.’ Michigan teen drives to Indiana to take pizza to hospice patient

Dalton Shaffer, all of 18, made his first pizza delivery the other night and it was a delivery that he - and thousands of people across the country - might not soon forget.

At the end of his shift on Saturday, Shaffer drove through the middle of the night more than 200 miles from Battle Creek, Michigan, to Indianapolis, Indiana to deliver two pizzas to a cancer patient under hospice care.

Neither Rich Morgan nor his wife, Julie, knew Shaffer was heading their way, she wrote on her Facebook page this week.

“And so, while Rich and I slept, at 2:30 AM, Dalton rolled into our driveway, left the car running and delivered two extra special pizzas to my waiting family,” Morgan wrote.

She called it “an epic pizza delivery.”

“The family came up, gave me a hug and everything like that, and it was cool,” Shaffer told Fox 17 in Grand Rapids, perhaps not understanding the magnitude of a gesture that has attracted nearly 5,000 positive reactions on Morgan’s Facebook post.

“The expression on their faces and everything was really cool.”

Morgan wrote that she and Rich lived in Battle Creek 25 years ago.

“We were young and money was tight but every pay day, Rich would pick up Steve’s Pizza for dinner,” she wrote. “I can’t possibly describe how delicious this pizza is - but several moves and all these years later, it is still the gold standard and we’ve never found a better pizza yet. Rich has frequently critiqued other pizza as ‘good but, it’s no Steve’s.’”

They had planned a recent getaway to Michigan to celebrate her birthday, look at the leaves - but more importantly enjoy some Steve’s pizza. Those plans were scuttled when Rich “landed in ICU for five days, and where we learned the news that his valiant cancer battle was coming to an end,” Julie Morgan’s Facebook post stated.

“Rich is home under hospice care and we are enjoying every minute reminiscing and visiting with family and friends.”

According to the Battle Creek Enquirer, Rich Morgan has a form of salivary gland cancer and “was told he had days, maybe weeks, left to live.”

Morgan had no idea that her father, David Dalke, called Steve’s Pizza on Saturday. He just hoped the pizza shop might send his son-in-law a card or something, he told MLive.

Shaffer answered the phone. He’s one of the managers and also the nephew of Jeremy Shaffer, who owns Steve’s Pizza, according to the Enquirer.

“He said that his family was thinking about coming up and grabbing pizza and things like that,” Shaffer told Fox 17. “But due to the circumstances they weren’t able to do that.

“I offered to bring pizza to them.”

Dalke was taken aback.

“I reiterated to him, ‘Dalton, we are in Indianapolis, and that’s a three-and-a-half hour drive one way.’ and he said ‘That’s fine,’” Dalke told the newspaper.

Yes, the teen understood.

“I just felt really sad for them” he told MLive, explaining why he drove through the night in his Honda Accord with two 16-inch pizzas.

Dalke told Fox 17 that when the teen pulled into their driveway in Indiana around 2:30 a.m., “he got out of his car and acted like he was delivering pizza. He said ‘Here’s your pizza!’

“He opened them up, ‘Here you go: pepperoni, pepperoni and mushroom.’”

Dalke told the Enquirer: “It was almost like he was just making a delivery across town.”

Morgan wrote that Shaffer “brought our family so much joy - and the best pizza in the world - at a really difficult time.

“While ‘thank you’ hardly seems adequate - from the bottom of my heart, thank you, Dalton from Steve’s Pizza in Battle Creek, MI for making your epic middle of the night pizza delivery!”

She said her father offered to pay for a hotel room for him, but Shaffer declined because he had to work the next day.

Dalke told the Enquirer that the teen didn’t want the family to pay for the pizzas or his gas, either, and only reluctantly took the money Dalke forced him to take.

“I took a couple 5-hour Energys,” Shaffer told the Enquirer. “I had to, I was super tired, but I made it and that’s what counts. It was worth it. I’m glad I did that.”

Steve’s Pizza, by the way, does not deliver.