Scots donate pizza to NHS staff battling Covid-19 pandemic

People across Scotland are donating a slice of goodwill to NHS workers during the coronavirus pandemic.

Every Slice Helps was launched in recent weeks by Mark Dickson in Fife, whose own wife is a doctor.

He wanted to help boost the morale of doctors and nurses on the frontline tackling the spread of Covid-19.

In just two weeks Every Slice Helps doubled its intended £3000 target and pizzas have already begun to arrive for staff in the country’s three biggest hospitals.

Donations for the cause have come in from as far as Israel.

The crowdfunder has teamed up with independent pizzerias including the Pizza Geeks in Edinburgh who answered the call to help.

Finlay Clarkson and Patrick Ward from Pizza Geeks have already pledged to bake 450 pizzas this week with the first batch already sent to the staff at the Edinburgh Sick Kids hospital and to homeless shelters in the city.

“Even though we are closed to the public during this period, we decided to carry on making pizzas to support NHS staff, care workers and Edinburgh’s homeless community,” said Mr Clarkson

“It’s a really tricky time for frontline health workers but also for people who are struggling a wee bit, so we’re just bringing pizzas to them to try and boost morale and bring them really important hot food.”

Hot help: Fresh pizzas going out to NHS workers

In order to keep the donations as safe as possible, the pizzas are delivered to special drop-off zones to avoid person to person contact on delivery and individual smaller pizza boxes are used to avoid food sharing.

‘We will survive! We will get through this with a bit of pizza but most importantly all of us looking out for each other.’
Finlay Clarkson, Pizza Geeks

The team say that some requests come in from colleagues and friends so it’s a nice surprise to the doctors and nurses when the hot food arrives.

Mr Clarkson and Mr Ward also say they would like to hear from more people who might be in need of a hot meal who they can help.

They are already on the streets with charity the Cyrenians this week to deliver hot pizza to people still sleeping rough.

“We will survive! We will get through this with a bit of pizza but most importantly all of us looking out for each other,” said Mr Clarkson.

“It’s about the community supporting each other – even a message of support online can meet a lot to people. If we all work together we can get through this.”