The daughter of a mobile pizza owner who is donating free pizza to NHS staff, has collated tales from their van and explaining what they do what they do for essential workers.

Freya Ewart, aged 16, helps mum Fiona at Dolly's Pizza. They have handed out dozens of pizzas paid for by customers paying extra when they order their own, and Dolly's gifting fresh pizzas too.

  

Here are a few tales from Freya, in her own words:

 

Tales from the pizza van

-          Half way through one of our regular shifts a car pulled alongside the pizza van. A man, not much older than 20 decked out in surgical mask and gloves, wound down his car window and asked us what it was we were doing?

We calmly explained that we were a mobile pizza van service, the man looked at us and hesitantly asked "so you're not a corona testing station?".

Admittedly this did throw us and I was struggling not to laugh, we explained that wasn't the case and continued a nice conversation with the man. He told us how he had just come from visiting his grandparents who he was particularly close with and very concerned about the virus and the impact it was going to have on them and his life on a whole. 

-          On a particularly cold shift we got a call from a lady for a few pizzas for her family. Just before she arrived to pick them up, she rang again and ordered another pizza but didn't really specify what she wanted; she just said "can I have a standard popular pizza?".

At the time, we thought It was a little odd but didn't think much of it. Later that night we got a message saying that she had dropped the extra pizza of at a One Stop shop for the shop workers. Who we imagine, like most shop workers, have had to deal with their fair share of stressed and worried costumers who maybe

haven't always behaved in a dignified manner.

This random act of kindness made us think perhaps we could do the same, giving people a thing as simple as a pizza in order to cheer them up in a time where we are all feeling a little bit alone and a little bit worried and scared.

We aimed to give these to key workers, not only NHS staff but all those little people who are helping to keep the country running behind the scenes. We looked at how many we could give ourselves while still being able to make a living, and after talking to several of our costumers we found that they also wanted to be able to help in any way they could.

We put out a post on Facebook asking people if they could spare a few pounds to help cover the costs of the pizzas – and it worked. 

-          We had already been trying to work out how we could get Pizza to a friend stuck in hospital as her young daughter had manged to break her leg within days of the schools shutting.

Her husband had said I would happily pay for you to deliver pizzas to her and the staff. Then a few days after we got this call our shift we got a call from Jack (a customer) who wanted to check where we were that night, he told us that his son was in hospital after overcoming a serious illness that had resulted in him losing his taste buds.

Slowly he was getting them back and starting to eat but he would only eat pizza. His dad made up an extravagant tale that he was getting pizza flown in all the way from American just for him and that he was going to the airport to go pick it up and give it to him in hospital.

Jack arrived with a bag of wild garlic that he had collected another random act of kindness. So, we asked his help deliver some pizzas to our friend and the NHS staff on the ward. Turns out they were on the same ward.  So, with an additional donation of £40 from our friends we were about to use to make more FREE pizzas.

A £5 donation buys a Pizza for a key work and Dolly's Pizza will match this and donate another Pizza

Freya Ewart 

In addition to these lovely tales, we understand Dolly's Pizza supplied a lady today who collected six pizzas for her family in the hope it might cheer her daughter up who was due to marry on Thursday but it was cancelled. A wedding two years in the planning, now delayed until December.

Fiona is searching for a site on the peninsula where NHS staff, and other essential workers can collect pizzas, either on their way into work to share among colleagues, or on the way home as treat and to save them cooking after a long, a hard shift.

Freston layby is looking favourite, a very temporary base, but Fiona would like to know the best times to be there. Contact Fiona on 078560 70123.

Dolly's Pizzas are in Stutton today from 4pm to 7pm. For full details on how, and what to order, how to pay and the guidelines on collecting go to Dolly's Pizza review.