ST. LOUIS —
NBA stars Bradley Beal and Jayson Tatum joined forces two weeks ago to raise money for food banks across their host cities and their hometown of St. Louis.
The duo donated more than $300,000 dollars to St. Louis area food banks.
But they weren’t finished there. Their focus shifted to serving healthcare workers on the front lines facing COVID-19.
This time, Beal and Tatum challenged their favorite hometown pizza company in helping them serve the community.
“We got a call Friday afternoon, this past Friday afternoon from Jayson Tatum’s agent,” Kelly Imo of Imo's Pizza said. “And he said, ‘We have a proposition for you guys. Would you be willing to listen?’”
Imo said the decision to the question was a no-brainer.
“They came up with this idea to donate 500 Imo’s pizzas to area hospitals,” Imo said. “To the healthcare workers who are really working there on the COVID units. And they asked us if we would be interested in matching that. We said, ‘of course, we’re all in.’ And so, that’s 1,000 pizzas.”
The first half of the 500 pizzas were delivered to St. Louis area hospitals by Tuesday afternoon, and the other 500 pizzas will be delivered by Friday evening.
“Bradley’s mom actually had a list of hospitals and healthcare facilities she definitely wanted on the list,” Imo said. “We filled in, and so together there’s about 30 hospitals and healthcare facilities that we’ve been delivering to.”
Imo said it’s been a great chance for the local owned Imo’s stores to give back to their local healthcare workers during this tough time.