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Kamloops  

You can send a pizza and a bottle of pop to a health-care worker

Pizza for health-care staff

With one pay-it-forward campaign already launched for the city's homeless and less fortunate, Pizza Pi and the Big Edition, along with the Kamloops Food Policy Council, are sending slices to health-care workers.

"Whether that is a custodian, a neurosurgeon... whoever has a badge," the Big Edition's Glenn Hilke says. "It's all going to be run on good faith when people order."

This version is a little different. The first version, which is still running, involves food insecure people walking up to the window at Pizza Pi in downtown Kamloops and ordering a slice. Instead of paying, Pizza Pi draws the funds from a pool of donations.

Around $1,800 has been donated to that campaign so far.

Greg Smith, owner of Pizza Pi, says the program did so well that expanding it seemed reasonable.

"That's why we decided to do the health-care program as well," he says. "We must have (fed) a few hundred people by now."

People can donate $25 or more if they'd like to send some 'za to frontline health-care staff. Pizza Pi will use those funds to deliver a large, two-topping pizza and a two-litre bottle of pop to a health-care worker (the $25 covers everything). When a health-care worker comes home after a long shift, they don't have to worry about making dinner or paying for delivery, says Hilke.

Smith estimates they can handle around 40 deliveries a day. He says an important part of the pizza program is keeping some employees working; he's even hired a delivery driver from another restaurant to help out.

"The community is really keeping us alive by doing this, keeping a small business going," he tells Castanet.

The Kamloops Food Policy Council was brought in to help facilitate larger donations, and offer tax receipts for donations that qualify.

If you'd like to donate to the pizza fund, e-transfers can be sent to [email protected].



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