The tastiest way to support your community

A local restaurant is offering four new pizzas for the next month, designed by four local charities, and financially benefiting those charities as well.

Damian Penner of Rocco’s Pizzeria bills the idea as “the tastiest way to support your community”.

For four weeks people have the opportunity to order pizzas created by Southeast Cancer Support, Steinbach Community Outreach, Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue and Youth for Christ.

These pizzas were designed at Rocco’s by each organization last week, when staff assisted, backed and sampled the creations.

Special events at Rocco’s always have a charitable piece to them, but this one is different.

“We decided this time around that we were just going to put on a special event just for raising funds for charity,” Penner said.

He was impressed with the creativity shown as representatives of the charities showed up and began creating.

“We let them have a completely blank slate to let them come up with whatever ideas they wanted, and we were prepared to put pretty much anything up on the menu,” he said.

Staff helped make minor adjustments to create strong flavour profiles, but in the end, it was up to each charity.

“We were working right beside all four organizations,” he said. “We whipped up dozens of pizzas.”

“Ultimately it was the charities that got to say, ‘You know what, this is what we like the best,’ because it’s their name that is attached to it,” he added.

There will be a financial benefit as well. From Oct. 15 to Nov. 9, each pizza sold, no matter what size, will generate $5 for that particular charity.

“At the end of the four weeks whichever pizza has sold the most will be put on the menu for the whole year and continue to raise funds,” Penner said.

He said they wanted to have charities that serve a variety of needs in the community, and all four fit the bill.

The four pizzas include:

Southeast Cancer Support Hope Supreme

Marinated chicken, side bacon, red onion and banana peppers with a golden honey garlic drizzle and green onion garnish.

Steinbach Community Outreach Streetza Pizza

Pulled pork, pineapple, banana peppers, onion tanglers, barbecue sauce and a creamy ranch drizzle.

Steinbach and Area Animal Rescue Dory’s Delight

Chicken, bacon, red onion, pineapple, barbecue drizzle.

Youth For Christ The Drop-In Deluxe

Ground bison, red onion, banana peppers, sun dried tomatoes, cheddar cheese dusted with Doritos and a chipotle drizzle.

Supporting charity has never been tastier and Penner said they are all definitely worth trying.

“We enjoyed all of them,” he said.