PIZZA
changed the game for pediatric patients, their families, and caregivers.
HERE’S HOW WE BUILT SOLUTIONS in hospitals nationwide
And how your city can do it next.
01 — THE PROBLEM
The patient gets a tray. The parent gets a bill.
When a child is admitted, the hospital feeds the child. The parent sleeping in the chair beside them is on their own.
So parents skip meals. Many lose weight. Some leave the room to find food. Others simply don’t eat.
$10
a plate. Two or three times a day. For weeks.
What one New Haven dad paid to eat at his daughter’s bedside.
02 — HOW IT STARTED
AN OMELETTE
changed the game first.
In 2022, Jeff and Sam Dorman’s two-year-old daughter, Harper, was diagnosed with leukemia. Jeff lived at her bedside at Yale New Haven, sometimes for weeks at a time.
One day, a food service worker noticed he wasn’t eating. She started bringing his meals to the room, on the house.
An omelette. A cup of coffee.
“…changes the whole trajectory of the day.”
— Jeff Dorman, Co-Founder
In January 2024, the Dormans founded Feeding Families Foundation to do that for every parent on the floor. Harper finished treatment in 2025. Today, she and her sisters sometimes help deliver the meals.
03 — WHY PIZZA
FRIDAY
is pizza day on the pediatric cancer floor.
Every Friday, Modern Apizza fires more than a dozen pies. Jeff wheels them into the pediatric hematology/oncology unit at Yale New Haven.
On Mondays, it’s Nolo. Olmo Bagels, Haven Hot Chicken and the North Haven Olive Garden pitch in too.
Then artist Michael Pollack and New Haven Pizza Club turned it into a movement. Art sales fund meals. A 13-foot, 9-ton pizza monument stands at Modern. A pizza-couture runway show, Strength in Numbers, filled the room.
Pizza didn’t solve hospital hunger. New Haven did.
Pizza is how a whole city said yes.
Every city has its beloved pizza place. Every city has a children’s hospital. Feeding Families connects them.
04 — HOW IT WORKS
The Parent Plate Program
1
We partner with the hospital.
We work with its food service team to flag rooms with pediatric patients.
2
The parent orders with the child.
When they call in their child’s tray, they’re offered a free companion meal.
3
It’s delivered to the room.
No leaving the bedside. No forms. No proof of need. Ever.
THE RESTAURANT PIPELINE
Every week, a local kitchen feeds the pediatric floor.
Restaurants cook and deliver meals straight to hospital families. A tired parent gets a real dinner. A kid gets a night that feels a little more normal. And a local business becomes part of the family’s story.
We know there are pizza places in every city, and we welcome them along with any other cuisine.
05 — IT TRAVELS
One floor in New Haven. Now children’s hospitals in 8 states.
50,000+
meals delivered
0
applications required
Candid Platinum Seal of Transparency, 2026
- Yale New Haven Children’s Hospital
- Connecticut Children’s
- Boston Children’s Hospital
- OHSU Doernbecher Children’s Hospital
- Lurie Children’s Hospital of Chicago
- Manning Family Children’s in New Orleans
- Duke Children’s Hospital
- Johns Hopkins All Children’s Hospital
- Golisano Children’s Hospital of Rochester
- Next: Your city.
06 — YOUR TURN
PICK A SLICE
Tell us how you want in. A real person will write back.
YOUR SLICE: Bring it to my hospital
Ready to give right now? Donate here.