On March 21 and 22, members of the EMU community and local Harrisonburg community came together to participate in a meal packing project with the intention of providing 100,000 nutritious meals for hungry children around the world. Y-Serve, EMU’s volunteer and service organization, hosted this meal packing event in partnership with Harrisonburg’s Tacos4Life, a restaurant chain with the mission of feeding those experiencing childhood hunger across the world through their food sales. For every meal sold at their locations throughout the country, about 20 cents is donated to Feed My Starving Children, another partner for this event. Feed My Starving Children is a non-profit organization that’s also working to provide food for children on a global scale.
Tacos4Life partnership with Feed My Starving Children go beyond monetary contribution, they also work to schedule MobilePack events where members of the local community can hand pack meals that will be shipped by Feed My Starving Children. The packaged meals are called Manna Packs, which are rice-based nutritious meals that are then shipped to those in need around the world.
The two-day event took place on Court C in University Commons. Music was playing from speakers, boxes marked “Manna Packs” were found throughout the space, and participants donned hair nets and gloves before beginning the challenge of hand packing thousands of meals.
EMU members of all types took the opportunity to volunteer their time to help the world’s hungry children, including the university athletic teams. Kenzie Taylor, a junior on the Women’s Volleyball team was happy to participate with her fellow teammates and other EMU athletes. She highlighted a particular moment where groups were racing to see who could package the most meals in 10 minutes as a memorable moment during the event. “It was really fun competing against each other for a good cause and making these meals for children that are starving,” Taylor shared. “It was a fun environment to be around, music playing, and having that feel of a competition while doing something good for the community.”
When asked why they decided to volunteer for this event, several participants had the same answer, it was a way for them to help their community, a core foundation of organizations like Y-Serve, Tacos4Life, and Feed My Starving Children.
This event was made possible by Brian Martin Burkholder, EMU’s university chaplain, along with members of Y-Serve.
“We’ve been planning since October of last year over this.” EMU senior Halie Mast, president of Y-Serve and one of the student leaders who helped plan this event, was happy to see the hard work they did in preparation amount to something grand. “I really think it’s cool to see this many people, students and community members, come together to do something like this,” Mast shared. “I think it puts everything in perspective, like coming together to do something like a good cause for other kids, I think this is really cool.”
This event was a part of a larger mission by Tacos4Life to provide 10 million meals by June 2025 in honor of the chain’s 10th anniversary. With about three months left to accomplish their goal, they’ve currently donated 5.2 million meals and have packed over 580,000 meals. Harrisonburg’s Tacos4Life will be hosting another meal packing event at JMU’s Atlantic Union Bank Center on Sunday, April 27.
