NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WKRN) — A new nonprofit that supports local restaurants as well as our hard-working hospital workers launched in Nashville Wednesday.

Feed the Front Line first began in Texas, but expanded this week to a number of states.

Wednesday, the group used online donations to purchase 70 meals from Vui’s Kitchen through the nonprofit that’s two-fold.

“Nashville’s restaurants are what makes it unique and they are a super integral part of our community so being able to simultaneously support local restaurants, make sure they don’t have to worry about closing their doors or you know if they are going to have enough orders to make it through the day is super important and also being able to support the hospital workers at the same time I think is a super unique mission,” volunteer and Vanderbilt student Meredith Lischer told News 2.

Keeping the doors open to locally-owned restaurants like Vui’s Kitchen has been trying. It was first hit by the tornado and now COVID-19.

“It’s super important for us to stay open and keep our staff employed. They depend on these paychecks to pay their rent, to feed their families, so it’s very important to us that we are staying in business and keeping these people employed,” CEO of Vui’s Mollie Murphree told News 2.

Thanks to online donations, Feed the Front Line is doing just that. Wednesday, they purchased nearly a thousand dollars in food.

“We are going to have our first 70 meals delivered today to St. Thomas Midtown to their emergency department and ICU,” Vanderbilt student and volunteer Troy Jiang explained.

While some may think it’s just a meal, the mission serves a bigger purpose for everyone from the donors and restaurant employees to the medical workers and volunteers.

“We are certainly very emotional and we hope this will provide some motivation and some care and loving spirit to our health care providers because they have given so much,” said Jiang.

The nonprofit has already partnered with Hattie B’s and Biscuit Love, as well as Vanderbilt Medical Center and Nashville General Hospital at Meharry, but they hope to add to the list.

For more information visit the website.