Helping The Hungry

   Kevin Chenoweth, the Missions Director for Tacos 4 Life, spoke to St. Joseph High School students on February 27 about the upcoming Tacos 4 Life MobilePack on March 12 at the Conway Expo and Events Center. St. Joseph's 10th-12th grade students will be involved in an effort to pack hundreds of thousands of nutritious meals for hungry children through the auspices of the Feed My Starving Children organization. Upwards of 600,000 meals were packed here last year and five million children and families around the world have benefited from this program since it began. 

   Tacos 4 Life started in Conway as a local,Christ-centered business which now has 16 locations in five states. It was founded by Austin and Ashton Samuelson who had a passion for helping the homeless and the hungry. They wanted to start a business that could be profitable and impact the world. Their business concept was simple. For every meal they sold, a portion of its cost would be donated to Feed My Starving Children.Today, for every taco purchased, 24 cents goes to that effort. 

   The meals, called Manna Packs after the Biblical reference to the edible substance God provided to the Israelites during their travels in the desert, have four ingredients: rice, soy, vitamins, and vegetables which are mixed with hot water. "About 6,200 children around the world die each day," Chenoweth said. "Yet hunger is nothing more than a distribution problem." This simple fact moved the Samuelsons so much that they knew that they could, and should, do something to help solve the issue. That's how Tacos 4 Life was born.