The best death row meal ever served

Philip Workman’s last meal request has to rank up there.

Before his May 9. 2007, execution in Tennessee his last request was that a large vegetarian pizza - he was a Seventh Day Adventist, a faith that doesn’t eat meat - be delivered to a homeless person.

The state refused to do it, and such refusal was duly reported in the papers.

This led to hundreds of people all across the country donating thousands of pizzas to Tennessee homeless shelters. Many of them were topped with meats

Here is the story 

Hundreds of homeless people in Nashville, Tennessee, ate well Wednesday evening -- all in the name of a man who the state put to death just hours earlier.

Philip Workman, 53, requested that his final meal be a vegetarian pizza donated to any homeless person located near Riverbend Maximum Security Institution.

He was executed there at 2 a.m. ET Wednesday.

But prison officials refused to honor his request, saying that they do not donate to charities.

That apparently upset a few people willing to pay for and deliver a lot of pies themselves.

Homeless shelters across Nashville were inundated with donated pizzas all Wednesday

Donna Spangler heard about Workman's request and immediately called her friends. They all pitched in for the $1,200 bill to buy 150 pizzas, which they sent to the Rescue Mission.

"Philip Workman was trying to do a good deed and no one would help him," said the 55-year-old who recruited a co-worker to help her make the massive delivery Wednesday evening.

"I knew my husband would have a heart attack -- I put some of it on the credit card. But I thought we'll find a way to pay for them later," she said. "I just felt like I had to do something positive."

Spangler wasn't the only person to place an order in Workman's name.

The president of the People for Ethical Treatment of Animals read a news story about the prison denying the inmate's last request and ordered 15 veggie pizzas sent to the Rescue Mission Wednesday morning.

"Workman's act was selfless, and kindness to all living beings is a virtue," said PETA President Ingrid Newkirk.

Not far away, 17 pizzas arrived at Nashville's Oasis Center, a shelter that helps about 260 teenagers in crisis. By 9 p.m. ET, more pizzas had arrived, said executive director Hal Cato.

"We talked to the kids and they understand what this is tied to and they know that this man [Workman] wanted to do something to point out the problems of homelessness."