The founders of Serve Our Heroes talking with the south Dallas VAMC COVID-19 ward nurses. (Photo courtesy of @serveourheroes on Instagram)

Four current or former Hockaday students have raised over $100,000 and delivered almost 11,000 meals to health care workers at veteran hospitals. The students launched Serve Our Heroes in April, a nonprofit that began delivering 75 warm meals each day to nurses and staff working in the COVID-19 ward at Veterans Affairs Medical Center in east Oak Cliff.

Since April, the organization has expanded and now coordinates lunch drop-offs in Temple and San Antonio, the Dallas Morning News reported. The charity also supports restaurants and caterers prepare and transport meals.

“I’m extremely grateful that we have found a way to fuel the fight by serving medical heroes who are taking care of our nation’s heroes,” co-founder Catherine Dedman told the publication, with her younger sister, Nancy, and friends Morgan Lutz and Celese Gierhart.

“All four of us have family members who have served, and the GI Bill allowed our grandfather to get and education,” Nancy Dedman said. “We’ve been taught to give back to the country that has given so much to us.” The Dedman teens continue the philanthropic tradition that began with their grandparents, Nancy and the late Robert H. Dedman Sr.

All four founders of Serve Our Heroes owe their drive to help others to their families and to their education at the Hockaday School. “Growing up in Dallas, I was pushed by my experience at Hockaday and my parents to get involved in service,” Lutz explained to the Dallas Morning News.

The teens have received help from the Communities Foundation of Texas to obtain nonprofit status and make an account for donations. To fundraise, they reach out to friends, Hockaday alumnae and promote on social media.

“At Hockaday, I was super involved in community service,” Gierhart said to the publication. “This has been a fun way to stay in contact with people and stay involved during the shutdown.”

To read more about Serve Our Heroes or make a donation, visit serveourheroes.org.