Pizza with Purpose originated from my ambition to inspire young people to make positive lifestyle choices and came about in response to the 18 years I spent teaching A-Level sociology in east Hull.

Wilberforce Sixth Form College is in a catchment area that includes areas of significant poverty, where more than half of the student population are from postcodes with a high deprivation index, where life expectancy can be up to a decade shorter than in the least deprived areas of the UK. A big part of the sociology curriculum is investigate reasons for this, and the extent to which these inequalities are due to individual choices like smoking or structural forces such as social class.

Inspired by Hull becoming the UK City of Culture 2017, when the city buzzed with optimism and energy, I launched the Wilberforce College Seeds of Change Project, promoting healthy eating, positive lifestyle choices and student enterprise.

Although there is a lot more that I could go into, the following pictures speak for themselves. They illustrate how my project grew across disciplines from the natural sciences to social science and the arts. All levels of students from foundation level with no prior qualifications, to A-Level got involved. I dropped from a full time teaching contract to work on this 2 days a week voluntarily.

Why pizza? While often stereotyped as an unhealthy, I started making pizzas with students, as a way of encouraging them to try freshly grown produce grown on the college campus, chilli peppers, rocket, red onions, spinach and tomatoes. Using grants and charity funding I set up my first pop up pizza business where young people encouraged one another to buy freshly made student pizza.

With 25 years as a classroom teacher, In 2025 I decided to make the leap and set up Pizza with Purpose Ltd as my business.

With almost a decade of pizza making experience behind me, I have perfected my pizza chef skills and upgraded my equipment. Whilst making pizza with students I was asked so many times if I catered for private events, I now do that as well.

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