Feeding Children & Feeding the Soul
By Amanda Bowers
From humble beginnings in Conway, Arkansas, the first Tacos4Life restaurant opened in 2014 with the mission to feed starving children around the world. Toney and Sandy Livingston quickly fell in love with the mission to end childhood hunger after meeting with founder Ashton Samuelson. Once they tried the delicious Tex-Mex food the restaurant offered, they were hooked. In December of 2018, the Livingston family has been feeding Texarkana, body and spirit, and giving back to the community since opening their very own Tacos4Life.
Tacos4Life, or T4L, are partnered with the non-profit organization Feed My Starving Children, or FMSC. For every meal purchased at any T4L location, a meal is donated to FMSC by creating healthy MannaPack meals that are vegetarian and culturally accepted around the world. FMSC donates rice, soy, vitamins, and veggies to the packed meals while volunteers come together to fill the MannaPack Rice packs. The nutritious ingredients are packed during a MobilePack event. This event brings volunteers alongside the Livingston Family, to pack together what will ultimately become a MannaPack.
Tacos4Life Texarkana has hosted eight MobilePacks. With the help of countless local businesses, churches, schools, and selfless individuals donating their time to these MobilePacks, FMSC and T4L have undoubtedly saved the lives of countless children across the globe. Grounded in a belief that hope begins with food and their Christian values, T4L and FMSC have donated more than 100 million meals this year alone according to FMSC. Mrs. Livingston estimates that more than 1 million of those children were fed by the efforts of the T4L in Texarkana and their local volunteers alone.
In April of 2024, Mr. Livingston had the opportunity to travel with FMSC to the Dominican Republic and distribute some of the MannaPacks that were packed right here in Texarkana to experience the lifesaving relief it brought to so many starving children in the region. “It was life changing for me to see the end result of what we do every day at the restaurant in Texarkana! I no longer view the food coming down the line as tacos, burritos, quesadillas, rice bowls, etc. I see the faces of the children I got to see and meet while handing out MannaPacks. It gave me even more passion for the mission. Kids around the world are depending on us to work hard right here in Texarkana so FMSC can ship meals out. What we do at Tacos4Life is so much bigger than what we can imagine in our small world (home town). It’s global!” said Mr. Livingston.
When asked about her purpose, Mrs. Livingston said simply to “feed the hungry.” Remembering her and her husband’s days as youth leaders in their church, the Livingstons have always been passionate about feeding children in need. “Now I get to go to sleep every day knowing we are part of an organization that has fed millions of meals all across the globe,” said Mrs.Livingston.
To learn more about Tacos4Life and their partnership with Feed My Starving Children, you can visit www.fmsc.org or stop by T4L today to find out how you can volunteer in Texarkana to make a global difference.
