T-L Photo/JOSIE BURKHART A.J. Corder, who owns Chestnut Lanes in Barnesville with his wife Becky, stands in the kitchen where they prepare pizza orders. The business is inviting the public to donate pizzas to people in need and is matching each pizza order placed for that purpose.

BARNESVILLE — People can get free pizzas or donate pizzas to other community members at Chestnut Lanes in Barnesville.

Chestnut Lanes is hosting a donation wall right now, where people could receive or donate pizzas. When someone orders and buys a pizza to be donated to someone in need, the receipt will go up on the donation wall. Anyone can come in and choose a receipt, show it to owners A.J. and Becky Corder and get that pizza for free. The Corders will also match the charitable pizza orders.

The business has given out 30 pizzas in two days, and A.J. said as long as people keep participating and receipts keep going up, they will keep the donation wall going.

The idea came from A.J. seeing people place an order at a restaurant for other people to eat, but he wanted to take it a step further with him and his wife matching the orders the donor paid for.

With times being tough, the Corders thought it would be a good idea to do something like this. They also said it benefits people during the winter blast the region is experiencing, since furnaces are breaking and pipes bursting.

So when someone comes in and buys a pizza to donate, A.J. will make a receipt for the person who ordered it and hang it up on the donation wall. Then he will order one and hang up a receipt for it as well.

Chestnut Lanes offers these extra large pizzas in pepperoni, cheese, chicken bacon ranch, buffalo chicken and barbeque chicken.

In 2020, a fire destroyed the longtime village business. A.J. said the Barnesville community pitched in money to help them recover. The Corders built and reopened the bowling alley in 2022. The free pizzas are a way to give back.

A.J. described Barnesville as a tight-knit community, coming together to support others that need help. He added that he didn’t want to take the credit for the donation wall and that it’s the Barnesville community helping it along.

“Barnesville and the whole Ohio Valley rallied behind us doing a lot of T-shirt donations and things like that,” A.J. said of the aftermath of the fire. “Ever since we opened up, we’ve felt obligated to give back to the community, the Ohio Valley, just showing the way they cared about us, we care about them the same.”