Sheffield restaurant gives free pizzas to heart medics, ambulance team, care home staff and more as nominations pour in for key worker scheme

Proove, in Broomhill, has switched to offering deliveries and, during the week, a takeaway service since the Government ordered eat-in establishments to shut temporarily to enforce social distancing rules.

Since April 6, the restaurant has donated a tray of wood-fired pizzas to a team of critical workers every day – a tray carries 15 balls of dough for 15 pizzas.

Working alongside CityGrab, the app run by Sheffield's City Taxis, Proove has created a schedule for deliveries after asking readers of The Star to suggest ‘heroes in your community’ who deserve to have pizzas delivered to their workplace. The response has been so strong that the scheme is now booked up until mid-May.

So far pizzas have been dispatched to the coronary care and CT radiology units at the Northern General Hospital; Middlewood Ambulance Station; the Jessop maternity wing's antenatal clinic; Pingley Court Care Home in Woodseats; Callywhite Care Home in Dronfield; The Green Care Home in Hasland, Chesterfield and NHS Blood & Transplant’s facility at Cathedral Court in Sheffield city centre.

Deepak Jaiswal, Proove’s co-founder and director, previously said customers had shown a ‘humbling’ level of support.

“We recognise there are so many people out there working in harm's way to protect communities by providing essential healthcare, distribution, infrastructure, supplies and support – the key workers, our heroes of today, and we want to show them how much we appreciate what they are doing," he said.

Send suggestions to [email protected] along with the following details: team name and address; contact in the team; why they deserve free pizzas, in less than 50 words, and a picture of the team if possible. Each day, the recipients will be revealed on Proove’s Facebook and Instagram pages. Nominators need to provide their name initially but can ask to otherwise remain anonymous.

Proove, launched in 2015, employs 60 staff across its two sites in Broomhill and West Didsbury, Manchester.

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