MT. JULIET, Tenn. (WTVF) — If you didn't know, Thursday was a holiday — National Pizza Day. For one man, pizza is a part of his incredible story. It changed his life, and it's helping him change other lives too.
No matter how old you are, where you're from, there is something unifying about good pizza. Valon Arifi knew that when he opened his Calabria Brick Oven Pizzeria in Mt. Juliet.
"Pizza just brings people together, brings families together," he smiled. "You will become the superstar of that party when you bring good pizza. We're a brick oven, wood fire pizza. We ferment our dough for three days. My go-to pizza that I'll eat one a day is a margherita."
That pizza aroma is what's kept customers coming back for seven years and what's led them to meet Valon. Some of them have heard his story.
Valon grew up in Kosovo. In the 90s, he was twice a prisoner of war.
"Just because I spoke Albanian, and I went to an Albanian school," he said. "It was a lot of horror stories, and families being displaced. I usually don't share stories like that cause at times they can be very emotional. I came here as a refugee."
After living in New York and New Mexico, Valon came to Mt. Juliet with the hopes of building his business. There's a deep pride and appreciation for the place because of all he's lived through. Thursday, Valon was giving back.
"Today is National Pizza Day!" he said.
Calabria joined restaurants everywhere in the Pizza Across America event where hot meals were made for those in need.
"We're donating to Compassionate Hands in Lebanon," Valon explained. "We're feeding about 60 people tonight. These people live without homes. This organization provides them a place to sleep, a meal at the end of the night."
Valon was there alongside Mt. Olivet Baptist Church and Mt. Juliet Police.
"We do that because we want to give back," he said. "I help people that are less fortunate to get to pay back what this country has given me in the last 23, 24 years."
