A new charity initiative providing hot meals to NHS frontline workers is appealing for companies in Dorset to become involved.

Bytes For Heroes is bringing together two completely different industries:

• Catering companies with the capability to provide food to NHS workers but unable to due to lack of funding.
• Technology companies wishing to help the NHS in a direct and tangible way but without an outlet to do so.

Bytes For Heroes is asking technology companies to donate their marketing, Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) or charitable budgets to the cause.

In return, it will manage the logistics of getting food to frontline NHS staff.

The money is used to fund local catering businesses to provide much needed food, working at cost.

The aim is to feed more than 1m NHS workers and healthcare heroes.

The charity initiative is the idea of Peter Rossi, Co-founder of InfoSaaS,  a cloud-based information security, risk management and data protection solutions provider.

It is already being supported by Amazon Web Services and UK Cloud, with companies registering interest online.

Poole resident Melanie Vasseur, a Digital Strategist at Silicon Reef and former Head of Digital at the RNLI, pictured left, has volunteered to be Byte For Heroes’ Technology Partner Director for the South West.

She said: “As the pandemic crisis progressed, and the pressure on our hospitals grew, I was on the lookout for tangible ways to say thank you and provide support, so when Peter Rossi set up Bytes For Heroes and put the call out for volunteers, I jumped at the chance to help out.

“At Bytes For Heroes, we are now making food deliveries at hospitals up and down the country, from Edinburgh to Surrey, and it is such a great feeling to see the smiles from NHS staff.

“As a Poole resident, it would mean a huge amount to be able to thank staff at our local hospitals in Poole, Bournemouth and Dorchester in this way.

“If your business is in a position to make a donation or do some volunteering – we need more digital skills and logistics expertise – then please do get in touch via our website.

“Equally we want to hear from catering companies in the area who would like to get involved.”

Full details about Bytes For Heroes can be found here.