Dedham Family Honored For Raising Dough For Charities With Pizza

DEDHAM, MA - A Dedham family’s generosity during the pandemic not only united a neighborhood but also raised some needed dough for charity – all through their weekly homemade pizzas.

The Fontaines were recently recognized at Dedham Town Meeting for raising more than $10,000 for area charities through the sale of their homemade pies.

Patti Fontaine said that her husband, David, bought an Ooni pizza oven a few days after the coronavirus first broke out and installed it in their backyard to give them something to do together as a family. They used the time in isolation to create a family pizza night that evolved into making pizzas as a surprise for essential workers and first responders in town.

To learn more about Ooni pizza ovens, click here.

“Ooni had an Ooni Day where they said if you make a pizza and gave it to a first responder – or whoever really – that they would donate a couple of dollars,” Patti said. “So we did that. And it grew from there.”

Beginning last May, the Fontaines began making and delivering surprise pies to the Dedham fire station, the Dedham Food Pantry, Dedham Housing Authority workers and nurses and staff at the VA Hospital.

“We had so much time on our hands during that time,” David said, noting that the couple worked from home throughout the pandemic. “Usually the neighbors are doing something with soccer or school activities. But every Thursday night we were home. It was a great way to bring everybody together when normally we’d all be running around in different directions.”

Although the pandemic was isolating for many, the Fontaines used this opportunity to form even deeper familial and community bonds through their pizzas, creating Fontaine Flames.

“The one good thing about COVID was the togetherness,” David explained. “We wanted to help, and everybody just pitched in together.”

“Every Thursday became pizza night,” Patti added. “I was getting the ingredients, and Dave was making the dough. “

A friend suggested to Patti that she make this a neighborhood event and charge for the pizzas so that the money could go to charity. They decided to create a pizza flavor of the week as well as offer a selection of toppings. The number of pizzas they made for the pizza night was limited to between 15 and 20 at $10 each. Each pizza had to be cooked individually.

“What was really great was when we would get comments back about how much they loved the pizza and what the next combination of the week would be,” Patti said. “We would put the spreadsheet up each week for people to place their orders, and we would sell out in two minutes. It became so popular that we had to limit it to two pizzas per family because people would get jokingly angry that they couldn’t get on the list.”

“Towards the end, we let people pick which charity they wanted to donate to,” David added. “Usually the money went to the Dedham Food Pantry or, at the time, the Dedham COVID Fund.”

Also receiving donations from Fontaine Flames were Black Lives Matter, the Dedham Youth Commission, and the Greater Boston Food Bank, to name a few.

David said they took their work “very seriously,” working hard to ensure that the pizzas were delivered promptly.

“Everybody had their job, and we all had to be organized,” he said.

David would make and bake the dough while Patti prepared the ingredients. The boys were the delivery team. A friend and neighbor, Alex Shumway, collected the money through Venmo and keep everything tabulated on a spreadsheet.

“There were a couple of mistakes along the way, but I’d say we delivered pretty much every pizza on time,” David continued. “It was great to show the boys the importance of following through on a commitment and getting the job done, no matter what it takes.”

“I liked to see the smiles on everyone’s faces when I brought the pizza to their steps,” added Dean, who also assembled the pizza boxes with his brother each Thursday during the 18 weeks of their venture.

The family appeared on a news broadcast on WBZ-TV last August.

On the rare chance a pizza was late or they ran out of a topping, Patti would throw in a bottle of wine or some baklava to add some good cheer.

Neighbors often returned their kindness, dropping off cookies at their door during the pandemic.

“This whole thing wouldn’t have been so successful without the generosity of our neighbors,” he added, noting their donations oftentimes exceeded what they were being charged.

“One time, a neighbor donated $1,000 to be given to charity,” David continued, which Ooni matched. “The goal was to get to $10,000, and we made it just before the winter.”

Ooni also displayed generosity to the Fontaines, sending them a pizza cutter, hats, T-shirts and matching the donations.

David explained that the oven reaches 800 degrees. While it only takes two minutes to bake a pizza, the dough must be flipped every 15 seconds to create the perfect pie. He made all the dough during his lunch break because it required five hours to rise.

There were some unexpected – and often humorous – mistakes in hindsight.

“The first time I made the dough, I thought I would be efficient and make 10 at a time,” he said, separating them with wax paper. However, they all stuck together.

“We had Nico hop on his bike and ask the local pizza shop if we could buy some dough after he explained what we were doing,” David said. “But once we started doing this for a while, we became pretty efficient.”

Dean created the design for the logo for Fontaine Flames. They created stickers with this logo to add to the 500 pizza boxes they purchased to add a personal touch. Everything was done while the family wore gloves and masks.

Neither Patti nor David had any previous experience making pizzas. David followed the directions that Ooni provided, while Patti got the sauce and the toppings.

“We put so much pride into these pizzas,” Patti explained.

The hardest part of all was “the cleaning of the kitchen,” according to Patti. This chore usually fell upon Dave, she said with a laugh.

“I’ll always treasure this time as a family,” Patti said. “Now we’re back to the time when we can barely eat dinner together. But we’ll always remember the Fontaine Flames.”