Feeding hungry children
Three shifts of volunteers pack meals for charity
Several times a year, Tacos 4 Life holds its Mobile Pack sessions, where volunteers are invited to come and help put together Mobile Packs, the meals that Feed My Starving Children send to needy nations to do just that.
“This is what it is all about,” said Tony Livingston, co-owner of Tacos 4 Life. “We tell all of our customers and communities that Tacos 4 Life is more than just great food. It is a mission. Every meal purchased has 24 cents (up from 22 cents) dedicated to this. And that money goes to Feed My Starving Children. And each Tacos 4 Life organizes these events to allow the community to literally lend a hand in the mission of feeding hungry kids.”
At the Texarkana, Texas, Convention Center and Hilton, volunteers from churches, civic and government organizations and more, all told more than 600 people in three shifts, put in the labor to assemble these meals, with the goal being 150,000 meals ready to go at the end of the day.
“We had a large amount of advertising going on the buildup to the event. But for those here, even though there’s lots of work, the training was easy,” Livingston said. “Just a five-minute video and then these crews were getting the job done.”
“We’re helping out, having a good time, here with fellow members of Lighthouse,” Kuturah Patterson said. “It feels good to be helping out. When an opportunity comes up to help out, everyone should give it a shot.”
Endsley Norman echoed the feelgood sentiment.
“Things like this remind me that we take lots of things for granted,” she said. “How much we have that the kids getting this food don’t.”
Feed My Starving Children works with 70 different countries. Ninety-nine percent of the meals make it to their final destination. Of the missing 1%, damaged meals, difficult locations and so forth can cause a few to not make it.