Let's get pizza! Wanna get pizza!?

File under: It's better than a Frozen Fish Fight.

(Does anyone know what Saturday Night Live skit that Title line is from? I barely remember it, and I really don't want to think about how many decades ago it was on TV!)

In the off chance that you know of anyone who might be interested in getting pizza, I have a soft sales pitch to throw your way. Although... This being me... you know that there has to be a digression before the main point, right? Not wanting to disappoint, here you are:

I know we've all had to do the door-to-door fundraiser thing. Whether it be Girl Scout cookies or gift wrap or--yes--pizza kits, we've all done it. But I think I've done one of the worst ones ever. 

You see, I grew up in a small town in South Dakota. Not the smallest town in South Dakota--after all they still do have a grocery store, K-12 schooling, multiple bars, and a hospital--but it was small. Small as in "There were more people who lived on the floor of the dorm my first year in college than there were in my entire graduating class" or--even better--"There were more people in my partner's high school than there were in my entire home town." 

**Sidenote** I tried to put in a link to a map, here, but my hometown wasn't on any of the South Dakota state maps I found online. If you're not familiar with the state, pull it up on Google maps and check it out. It's more interesting than you might think! **End sidenote**

You can imagine, then, that if a group of 40-60 kids in the band all got sent out to try to sell the same products, it got difficult really fast. I mean, there just wasn't that big a pool of potential buyers. But when I was in high school the band wanted to go on a trip, and we really needed money, so we headed out into the community with our information sheets and sales trackers. We practiced our sales pitches, figured out when the products would be delivered, and went on our way to sell...

Wait for it...

Don't guess... you'll be wrong...

Ready?

Fish. 

Nope. Not goldfish, but...

Frozen Fish. 

Frozen Breaded Fish. Frozen Unbreaded Fish. Frozen Filleted Fish. Frozen Shellfish.

I particulary, for no apparent reason, remember that we were selling pollock and haddock. Both of which, I believe, were marketed as "fresh, light-meat fish." 

Now, you have to give the band director credit. He arranged all of this so that the sales would end in January, and the product would arrive just in time for Ash Wednesday. Not that I went to a Catholic school, but there were enough Catholics in my senior class that prom had to have a fish option on the menu. 

So everyone in band went out into the community and sold frozen fish. And we sold it well. When the truck unloaded in the middle of winter we hauled boxes and boxes of pollock and haddock and shrimp out into waiting cars. What I wouldn't have given for a box of pizza kits! Which, of course, brings me back to the subject of this posting: Pizza Kits being sold for fundraising.

Some great friends of mine own and run Freedom Martial Arts in Bel Air, Maryland, and they're currently doing a pizza-kit-based fundraiser. Want to help them out? Go to the Joe Corbi's website (joecorbisdirect.com), order yourself some pizza kits (or cookie dough or pretzel dogs or whatever you want), and put "Freedom Martial Arts" in when it asks who should benefit from your order. If you live close to Maryland, it's pretty cheap to do. Farther away in the States it's a little more pricey for shipping, because all of the ingeredients (like the copious amounts of cheese) are fresh, so they have to be shipped fairly expeditiously. 

And don't worry--I wouldn't suggest buying it if it wasn't perfectly good stuff. I mean... it's not pizza being delivered from your favorite grease-filled pizza joint, and it's not the brick-oven stuff you get in Italy, but it IS good, and--more importantly--it's for a good cause. Even better, since you get to put the pizzas together at home, you can choose what goes onto them. Make them as healthy--or unhealthy--as you want. Add onions, leave off the mushrooms, whatever. And each kit has the making for 3 12-inch pizzas, for the price of about one-and-a-half delivered pizzas!

So... Wanna get pizza!? Let's get pizza!

(Okay. That's my last public service announcement posting for the immediate future. I promise to be completely self-serving for at least the next few blog entries. :-)