BUFFALO, N.Y. — Restaurant owner Scott Williams is celebrating his community by giving people free pizza. For the past month, Williams has been asking for nominations for outstanding members of his community so that he can show them some appreciation with a free pizza.
"It’s nice. It’s nice to reward people that, they don’t see it coming," He told 2 On Your Side.
Williams is the owner of "Theo's Family Restaurant" in Arcade, New York.
The idea came to Williams while he was watching an episode of "The Ellen DeGeneres Show" with his family.
"She does these nice giveaways. We talked about, you know, what we could do to kind of help people get through their days and we came up with pizzas."
After the initial Facebook post, Williams says the nominations came pouring in. From there, his initiative grew. Williams would start to dedicate certain weeks to certain individuals. One week he focused on giving food to single parents and another week was dedicated to local businesses. Most recently, Williams has been focusing on school teachers and staff.
The most recent recipient was Amy Faust. Faust is an 8th-grade math teacher at Pioneer Middle School. She was nominated by the parents of a former and current student. Faust had heard about the nominations but hadn't imagined that someone would nominate her.
"I was in the office just by coincidence and the door opened saying, ‘I’m looking for Amy Faust’ and I said ‘I’m right here’ and he goes, you’re getting a free pizza you’ve been nominated."
The front office and cafeteria staff were also nominated. The principal of the Melissa Prorok, says she's happy to see her staff be recognized for all their hard work.
"Education is a field that doesn't really get recognized very often and for this to happen and for Scott to start this. It’s just really blossomed and just made us feel really proud of what we do," she told 2 On Your Side.
Williams says that he's happy people are thankful for what he does, but he simply sees it as a way of giving back to the community that has given him so much.
“Without them, we wouldn’t be able to do what we do.”