Pizza Party — Jim Crane and Houston Astros Send Free Pizzas to Every Fire Station in the City

Jim Crane and the Houston Astros have done a number of big initiatives to help out during the coronavirus crisis. These include a $400,000 donation to hospitals within the Texas Medical Center from the Astros Foundation and a partnership with Crane Worldwide (Crane’s shipping company) to deliver critical medial supplies and personal protection equipment to the hospitals desperately that need them.

But one of the smaller gestures from Crane and the Astros is bringing a smile to many.

The Astros Foundation sent free pizzas to every fire station in Houston this week. That adds up to 470 pizzas delivered to Houston’s 94 fire stations.

It’s not something that is going to change the world — or save lives, like some of the larger undertakings will (including that personal protection equipment drive). But sometimes a little thank you can mean a lot.

“Providing lunch is a small way for us to say thank you to so many of the first responders in our city,” Jim Crane says. “They truly are our unsung heroes. We wanted to show them how much they are appreciated.”

Papa John’s partnered with the Astros on the surprise pizza deliveries. The true front-line heroes of this pandemic need to eat, too. Firefighters are often the first to arrive on the scene of an EMS call, an increasingly perilous proposition in these coronavirus times.

While Major League Baseball discusses and debates plans that could make it the first major professional sport to return from the coronavirus shutdowns — including the possibility of playing all its games at stadiums in the Phoenix/Scottsdale area — the Astro higher-ups are trying to do their part for Houston.

Sometimes that means hosting a full-scale personal protection equipment drive at Minute Maid Park with the City of Houston, Project C.U.R.E., and Cheniere Energy, as the Astros organization did Wednesday afternoon, collecting donations of  N95 Masks, surgical masks, face shields. and more.

And sometimes, that means just getting Houston’s firefighters a ton of pizza.