Pollock - Pizza for Good: an Interactive Cookbook, Memoir, and DIY Guide for Building Community

The more senses you awaken in people, the greater success they can achieve. Alexis Vear

What is the sum of me? might sound like an odd question, given that youre only one personin a mathematical problem, a sum usually involves two numbers added together. However, we humans are made up of more than just our own flesh and bones: we love, laugh, cry, and achieve with the good people in our lives, who are with us during our journey.

In other words, we are the people around us.

The importance of having great individuals surrounding you gets driven home whenever I host my annual New Years Eve Gourmet Pizza Extravaganza11 years and counting. What started as a modest party is now a regular destination for folks who want to reflect on the past year and the one thats to come. Oh yeah, and eat some great pizza, too.

First, some history: started in 2002, the NYE GPE began small, in a galley apartment kitchen in Midtown Atlanta with a few close friends and neighbors, all of whom raved over both the pizzas and toppings. In 2004, I moved to my beloved home on Myrtle Street (aka Cannon House, named after the family that owned it for five decades previouslymore on that later) which could accommodate more hungry revelers. The party started to attract 50-plus peopleall of whom were eager to ring in the new year. They brought wine, gift bags, and other thank-you tokens that I very much appreciated, but didnt necessarily need or request. And then the proverbial light bulb appeared above my head.

If I was creating incidental goodwill by offering tasty, creative pizzas to my guests, and the party seemed to bring people together so easily, could I seize this moment and try to create something that helps people? The answer was a resounding yes. And thats what Pizza for Good is all aboutfeeding the masses for the advancement of great causes, and, by extension, feeding unseen friends who need your help.

After my aunt, Betsy Weedon , passed away in 2006, I wanted to do something to honor her work with charities and her love of the arts. Betsy gave much of her life to working for charitable causes, so it felt like a natural step to create an event that would channel her work into something productive and meaningful. Knowing Atlantas predilection for goodwill and community organizing, and fueled by my own love of the arts, I created my charity, ARTvision Atlanta .

ARTvision (the capital letters stand for Artists Reaching Through) is based on the premise that some creative people have a natural, embedded drive to use their talent for goodeven if it means the effort doesnt immediately earn them direct income. A photographer, for example, might print, mat, and frame a piece at his or her own expense and donate it to our event for the sole purpose of fundraising; I, in exchange, brag endlessly about them in person, on our website, and on social media. That photograph is usually assigned a flat fee, and it is either sold, donated, or returned to the artist.

ARTvision started in 2006. It was designed to be small, exclusively online, concurrent with the NYE pizza party, and comprised of two painters and two photographers. Today, we usually feature at least 20 artists across multiple mediums from around the nation and world. This year, ARTvision-8s theme is The Promise of Peace: Art Innovating Life, which is the first time the theme is both topical and a charge to make a statement for a better world.

And it was all born from that pull of pizza, the promise of perfect dough, fresh toppings with some creative namesmany of which youll find in the pages of this bookpartnered with a number of artists who also wanted to make a difference. In our first year, we raised $1,400 in unfettered funds; today, all told, weve raised more than $40,000 for various HIV and LGBT/human rights charities in New York and Atlanta. ARTvision is now a standalone event in early December thanks to a suggestion from a fan. In 2013, were hoping ARTvisions event will eclipse the $50,000 mark.

In keeping with the spirit of ARTvision, Ill be donating 50 percent of Pizza for Good s after-cost proceeds to Positive Impact .

With pizza, as with charity fundraising, instinct is everything. Dont just notice your instinct, use it, and to its best end. I use instinct and intuition in my everyday life, constantlyperhaps unusual for a guy, grantedbut for me its especially present in cooking. And once youve mastered the dough portion of your event, the sauces and toppings leave the door wide open. The universe of ingredients is your oysterbut please, dont ever use oysters . Theyre like cooked eyeballs and I wont have any of it.

In any community around the country, folks can use the gourmet-pizza model to raise funds with some seed money and a touch of flair. You, too, can launch a pizza event that will draw the masses, allow you to use your creativity, and put cash in the hands of those who need it.

From a social standpoint, pizza is a culinary magnetic charge that transforms hungry people into a unified army, in solidarity to choose toppings and to quench the craving for the most satisfying dish on the planet. That energy can be harnessed for a worthy cause, and Pizza for Good will explain how you, too, can bring people together, through chowing down and fundraising, to advance and enhance your own communities.

And make sure to save your appetitethe pizzas are so good that youll want to devour them way before your guests ever arrive. Leave your diets at the door, but always complement your pizza consumption with lots of sweat and activity the next day. Youll be giving yourself some carb energy to go for a run, do a hike, or get on the treadmill for 30 minutes.

As youre contemplating your own Pizza for Good event, consider this: What drives you? Who in your community needs additional support? Why now? Are you dedicating it to someones memory, supporting research to eradicate a disease, or are you perhaps working to support your local church?

I am passionate about Positive Impact, the charity that Ive been working with since 2008. For every $100 we raise through ARTvision, Positive Impact is able to provide one hour of mental-health counseling to those affected by HIV. Taking it one step further, our best year was 2010, in which we raised more than $12,000that is enough to fund one-third of a PI clinicians annual salary.