Student-founded nonprofit increases access to dental care

Dave Chadha, ‘28, walked the streets of an impoverished area in New Delhi, India, with his grandfather every summer until his death. The two handed out toys, fruit, clothes and whatever else his grandfather, Harish Khosla, thought people needed to feel fulfilled. 

“If we had $2, we could give 25 cents back to someone who needs it,” Chadha said. “He was the kind of person who gave his last dollar towards helping other people out.” 

When Khosla passed away during Chadha’s first year of high school, he knew he wanted to create something to honor his grandfather’s legacy in India. Particularly, he said he needed to get to the root cause of what was affecting children in New Delhi — their health care and, more specifically, their teeth.

From there, he began working in a dentist’s office, Tarrytown Dental, near his hometown of Ardsley, New York. After gaining experience in the field, he created Dental Care Bridge — a nonprofit organization that provides blind children in New Delhi with adequate oral care.

According to its website, the organization is structured to collect donations from benefactors in the United States, and with that money, buy dental supplies and compensate local healthcare workers in New Delhi who are helping these children firsthand. Chadha said the people he compensates check children for cavities, look for signs of chewing tobacco use and replace water filters.

He said a lot of his efforts in finding benefactors can be attributed to his parents, Manny and Ranjana Chadha, and their networks. Funding also comes from the American Indian community hearing of Chadha’s work from News12, WFMZ and word of mouth.

From his pitches, he was also able to get donations from people within the school district, including the district’s parental network, principal and superintendent. He has a fundraiser for Dental Care Bridge that has raised approximately $84,000 this year. 

In the past two years the organization has been active, Chadha has raised $102,447.

“My fundraising comes from high net worth individuals who see the passion and the tenacity that I have and want to reward me for that,” he said. “They also receive a benefit, obviously, of attaching their organizations so they save money on taxes. There’s benefits from both of us in that scenario.” 

Omar Rahin, ‘28, is the social media manager for Dental Care Bridge. Rahin and Chadha met last semester, as they are both pre-dental students at Lehigh. 

Rahin said Chadha is very meticulous, but his own workload for the organization is very relaxed because the two have great communication. 

Chadha also leans on his mother for communication, because even though he speaks Punjabi and Hindi, he said the locality and fluency of his mother helps “lead the charge.”

The Andh Mahavidhyalaya Blind School in New Delhi received supplies and support from Dental Care Bridge, and Chadha said he organized with the school’s director on a set agreement on financial benefits the school would be receiving.

“Once we got there, he wanted essentially a handout to make this happen,” Chadha said. “He wanted more money and pay for his workers, but it wasn’t that we were lacking, it was more so that the guy wanted to maybe take a vacation somewhere or use the money towards something else.” 

He said he had a sharp and immediate response in Hindi, emphasizing he would refuse to make an illegal donation to fund any other activity. However, he was unable to get the point across as well as his mother could. 

“Sometimes my speed will get the best of me,” he said. “I’ll be really quick with a sharp response, but it works in my favor at times as well. Having that ability to speak my mother tongue — if I said the same thing in English, the point would not come across as sharp, in my opinion.”

Dental Care Bridge also funded Lehigh’s Dental Care Day on Feb. 23. Chadha said the organization pledged $10,000, but the event required less than $2,000. He said he partnered with the Lehigh Dentist Society and a local Bethlehem dentistry.

Chadha said running a nonprofit organization and being a fulltime student at 19 comes with challenges.

He said as a pre-dental student interested in general dentistry, juggling trips to India, studying for chemistry, maintaining receipts for the IRS, doing well in school and maintaining transparency in the structure of his organization is difficult.

Jake Spradlin, ‘28, is Chadha’s roommate at Lehigh. He said he has seen firsthand the difficulty of balancing running a nonprofit organization and being a fulltime first-year student.

Chadha said the key is balance, but this is something he’s still figuring out. In the coming weeks, Chadha is looking to prioritize his schoolwork and set aside Dental Care Bridge once he is satisfied with the work accomplished.

“I know how much this means to him,” Spradlin said. “He puts 100% effort into everything he does.”