Theo’s customers in Camberwell have raised more than £3,000 in one week to get hundreds of free pizzas to King’s frontline workers.
The pizzeria on Grove Lane began donating free pizzas to King’s College Hospital during the first wave of COVID-19 last year.
Customers soon got involved and helped keep up the supply of meals by purchasing online vouchers, covering the cost of making and transporting the food.
During the first lockdown, the Camberwell community raised £5,000 and got 1,500 pizzas over to the hospital’s staff.
Now, as the NHS faces the darkest days of the pandemic so far, Theo’s have restarted the scheme and £3,000 was already raised after one post on social networking site NextDoor.
One local to praise the initiative is the mother of a frontline worker. She commented underneath the update: “I just wanted to add to other people’s positive comments that my daughter, who works as a midwife at King’s, told me with such delight that pizzas arrived one day – you can’t imagine how amazing it is for the morale of the staff – thank you so much for this.”
Co-owner Simon Leaver said feedback from King’s had been ‘incredible’ throughout the pandemic, as has the support from their customers and the wider community.
“As you can imagine, times are very tough for us financially at the moment so there is a limit to what we can fund ourselves,” Simon told the News.
“We are willing to fund some of this but really what will make it the huge success we want it to be is donations.
“Quite simply, the more we can raise, the more food we can deliver to staff over a longer period of time.”
All funds simply cover the labour costs and ingredients, with no profit to the restaurant.
To buy a pizza for a King’s frontline worker, visit https://theospizzeria.giftpro.co.uk