“I didn’t really see any PR for a similar organization in Houston,” Liu said. “So I basically asked Omar and Jeffrey if they wanted to help the community.”
Liu formed the Food For Heroes nonprofit a little over a month ago with fellow Bellaire High School junior Omar Busaidy and junior Jeffrey Chuong from Texas Academy of Math and Science.
The three students have parents on the front lines in the health care industry fighting COVID-19, and they wanted to make a difference, Chuong said.
“They told us about the conditions they had to go through,” Chuong said.
The trio also saw the struggling businesses throughout the Greater Houston area, and so they combined supporting businesses and health care workers through the nonprofit's mission.
After setting up the nonprofit through the Internal Revenue Service and through the state and setting up a GoFundMe page, Food For Heroes was officially up and running, with help from an adult to open a bank account for the nonprofit.
Since its founding, Food For Heroes has used over $5,000 donated to it to pay between 10-15 restaurants throughout Greater Houston to make and deliver food to emergency rooms and intensive care units in local hospitals, including Memorial Hermann Southwest, Memorial Hermann Greater Heights, Memorial Hermann Sugar Land, Memorial Hermann Texas Medical Center, Houston Methodist Sugar Land and Baylor St. Luke’s, with plans for more.
“We plan on expanding to other hospitals,” Chuong said. “These are just the hospitals we’ve delivered to so far. And we know that they have the most COVID-19 patients.”
The trio will continue to run the nonprofit as necessary throughout the pandemic, Chuong said.
“Thank you to all of our donors,” Chuong said. “We’ve received heartfelt messages from hospital staff and restaurants about how much we’ve helped them. We want to be able to continue donating meals.”
To donate, visit the nonprofit here.
