On November 3, 2021, the Heritage Key Club and Tri-Community Kiwanis hosted the 27th Annual Veterans’ Dinner. Several local veterans attended the drive-thru event, which was held at Serrano High School. For the past two years, the annual event has had to continue as a drive-thru event. Organizers are hopeful that in 2022 the event will be able to return to the Serrano Gym as a sitdown meal and evening of honoring those who have served our country.

While the indoor event would attract close to 1000 veterans, the drive-thru events haven’t seen those numbers but have still been a great success. This year, once again, Serrano alumnus Kyle Zimmerman, who owns the Victorville Chick-Fil-A, provided 500 meals for the Veterans dinner. Heritage Builder’s Club Advisor and history teacher Todd Anton headed up the event as he has for the past 27 years. The event is designed to honor our veterans and educate our youth on what it means to serve your country and the sacrifices that are made to do so. Tri-Community Kiwanis, the sponsor of the Heritage Builders Club, assists every year with many members in attendance at this year’s event. Serrano groups such as the Culinary Arts students, Cadet Corps, Band, Key Club, and Serrano FFA/Agriculture students helped prepare, serve and entertain our veterans as they drove through the line.

All in all, the evening was a great success. One Vietnam-era veteran who attended commented, “It was really great with the band and all the kids standing on the sidewalk in front of the school, just like a parade, only in reverse,” he went on to say, about the event “Seeing all of the ‘kids’ participating and thanking us as we got our meal and honoring veterans like this has restored my faith in our youth that they will preserve our freedoms as we did before them.”