Giving back on a ‘Grander’ Scale: Local pizza shop launches nonprofit
Photos: Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Shannon and Tom Grande announce the launch of Pizza With Purpose, a nonprofit that believes everyone, regardless of circumstance, deserves access to good food – especially pizza – inside their Meadow Lands pizza shop, Grande Jr. The couple have been giving back unofficially for five years and are eager to reach more people in need through the foundation of their nonprofit.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Establishing the nonprofit Pizza With Purpose “just keeps us foundational,” said Tom Grande, who owns and runs both Grande Jr. Pizza Express in Meadow Lands and Grande Italian Restaurant in McMurray with his wife, Shannon. The couple, who both have experience with grantwriting, volunteerism and nonprofit work, is pictured here inside Grande Jr. along Racetrack Road on a recent weekday.
Katherine Mansfield/Observer-Reporter
Grande Jr. is spreading its (fire) wings with the launch of Pizza With Purpose, a nonprofit dedicated to serving, and feeding, the community. Tom and Shannon Grande announced their nonprofit recently and folks are welcome to learn more at the Grande Jr. website.
The Meadow Lands’ beloved pizza shop Grande Jr. is adding an item to its menu, of sorts.
The locally owned and operated pizzeria known for large, delicious calzones, a homemade New York-style Sicilian pizza – served only on weekends – and commitment to community is announcing the launch of Pizza With Purpose, a nonprofit whose mission is to provide free food to the poor, distressed and underserved.
“We get asked for a lot of things. If it’s reasonable, we’ll do it,” said pizzaolia Tom Grande, who owns and runs Grande Jr. and Grande Italian Restaurant in McMurray with his wife, Shannon. “Every year the responsibility gets larger. I want us to be able to actually say, just say … yes, more and more.”
The Grandes didn’t set out to save the world one pizza at a time.
Pizza With Purpose is a delicious blending of the couple’s restaurant experience and passion for service, a culmination of their dedication to community that includes providing discounted pizzas to local high school teams’ concession stands; donations of gift cards and raffle baskets to area fundraising events; and spaghetti dinner sponsorships.
The police department gets all the Grande Jr. mistakes, Tom laughed, and low-income families in a dinner pinch are always welcome to a free slice for their children, no questions asked.
“We can only do so much without taking it and formalizing it and making it bigger and better. I just feel like this is going to be on a more organized and grander scale,” Shannon said.
Though a “grande” undertaking, Pizza With Purpose isn’t the Grandes first foray into nonprofit business. After her brother, Sgt. Joseph Minucci II, was killed in action in Iraq in 2003, Shannon founded the Richeyville Honor Roll Fund to raise thousands for the town’s volunteer fire department.
She’s a skilled grantwriter who helped a New Jersey school reacquire a learning grant, and then managed that half-million dollar grant herself (Tom grew up in New York City and the Grandes lived in Jersey while Shannon earned her master’s and chaired the science department of a charter school).
The couple has worked with the Washington City Mission and often partners with the area nonprofit PA Pet Vets, posting that nonprofit’s flyers to Grande Jr. pizza boxes and selling tickets to Vet Pet events in the storefront.
“They’re a veterans group; that’s really important to me. I partnered with this group around Veterans Day, and Omar Brooks, the founder, is just a phenomenal person. He started kind of coaching me on how to start a nonprofit. He got me involved in kind of going back to my roots in nonprofits,” said Shannon. “My husband was always like, we need to start something so I can be more organized and get to more people. He’s like, I want to be able to say yes more.”
Shannon completed a nonprofit course recommended by Brooks and wrote Pizza With Purpose’s articles of incorporation and bylaws. She also penned the mission and vision statements.
“I really missed just giving back, being part of a community. I had done a lot of impactful work. Something was missing,” said Shannon, noting that she and Tom toyed with franchising Grande Jr. before taking the leap and launching Pizza With Purpose.
“I come across so many people that are in need. You do this kind of work because it feels good. It does; it feels great. We can help out the community, and that’s pretty cool.”
The Grandes have made giving back official: Pizza With Purpose’s tax-exempt status is in their hands and they’ve added a PWP section to the Grande Jr. website. Customers are invited to donate to the anything-but-cheesy cause online at https://grandejrpizza.com/pizza-with-purpose.
Folks in need may also fill out a donation request online at the same link.
“We know that food helps bring people together,” said Shannon. “We really just want to help out as many community members as possible.”
Pizza With Purpose is the next, organic step in Grande Jr.’s delicious journey.
“I think its kind of natural, in a way. It feels like this is what we should be doing,” said Tom. “If we’re going to be in business for this long, and in charge of this many people and their livelihoods, we need to be able to run it right and keep it sustainable and let it grow. This nonprofit, it just keeps us foundational.”
For more on Pizza With Purpose, visit https://grandejrpizza.com/pizza-with-purpose.