After a young employee at Nino’s Trattoria in Waterbury fell ill during the COVID-19 pandemic, his co-workers collected money to get him through the tough time in the form of a money pizza. The employees at Nino’s are facing struggles of their own during the pandemic, but they took the time to take care of one of their own.

Rich Murray, 22, was working at Nino’s for less than six months when his debilitating disease took over. He has an autoimmune condition called Ulcerative Colitis. “Essentially your immune system targets your large intestine,” he explained. He grew extremely sick in March and had to stop working.