GEORGETOWN, Del. - Lisa Diaz's husband Larry is a correctional officer at the Sussex Correctional Institution in Georgetown. So after a deadly prison riot killed correctional officer Lt. Steven Floyd, Diaz felt the need to take action.
"This started out with me thinking I was going to feed my husband's tier," she says. "With so much going on, it's so sensitive over there and it's a hard job to fill."
So she planned on bringing pizzas to the 40-80 officers who work with her husband, but while talking it over with a friend, a miscommunication led to a bigger mission.
"She thought [I was talking about] Smyrna and then she goes 'Let's just feed them all!' 'And I'm like, all?" Diaz recalls.
But that's what they did. Lisa, her friend Pam Price, and Diaz's daughter Danielle Adkins got enough pizzas to cover all three shifts at SCI on Friday. Adkins says Domino's sold them at a fraction of the cost, Redner's Market donated 200 pieces of chicken, and Herr's donated 1,000 bags of chips. What's more, Diaz says they are delivering gift cards to the Smyrna prison on Saturday so those correctional officers can get a free meal too.
"All of 40 to 80 turned out to be 1200 employees," Diaz says.
Adkins says it may just be pizza, but it's a way to say thank you, and that doesn't happen enough.
"It's a thankless job,' she says. "They deal with people doing things terrible to them, towards them, saying things...I don't think they get enough recognition. They just don't."
Adkins says it warms her heart to see the community come out to show their appreciation. She hopes it boosts the officers' morale.
"It makes you feel good," she tells WBOC. "It's something small that took a couple hours of your day, but it made their day."
