EMU Y-Serve, a student-run organization focused on volunteer service in the community, hosted the event on Friday and Saturday in partnership with the Harrisonburg Tacos 4 Life restaurant and the Feed My Starving Children nonprofit. For every meal sold at Tacos 4 Life locations, the company donates a portion of the proceeds to FMSC to help purchase Manna Packs. These nutrient-rich bagged meals, specially formulated for children, are then distributed by the nonprofit to schools, orphanages, medical clinics and feeding programs in about 100 countries. 

In its most recent fiscal year, the organization provided 375 million meals to mission partners worldwide, according to Brian Yeich, regional development adviser for FMSC. He said that the total meals packed at the EMU event exceeded the organization’s goal of 101,088 meals. 

“We are so grateful that God brought together FMSC, Tacos 4 Life, and the greater EMU community to feed God’s starving children, hungry in body and spirit,” he said. “To not only meet but actually exceed the meal-packing goal by over 12,000 meals is a testament to the people of the Harrisonburg community and the generosity of Tacos 4 Life, which sponsored these meals.”

On Friday and Saturday, Yoder Arena transformed into a meal-packing plant. Teams of volunteers scooped vitamin powder, dried vegetables, dehydrated soy and rice into bags, which were then weighed for consistency, sealed, and placed into boxes. The boxes were loaded onto a truck bound for the warehouse, where they will be distributed to children in need. 

As she finished a volunteer shift packing meals on Friday afternoon, EMU junior Sara Kennel, a member of the Y-Serve leadership team, said she had a wonderful experience working with a group of EMU students, staff and field hockey players, as well as students from Rocktown High School. She said she appreciated how FMSC partners with local organizations on the ground.

“They’re not just handing out meals,” she said. “They’re specifically committed to children for a designated length of time and, within that time, working to find other solutions to feed and provide for them more sustainably.”

The event at EMU has sparked a trend in the Harrisonburg community. Jeremy Hunter, operating partner of the Tacos 4 Life Harrisonburg location, said that James Madison University has agreed to host a MobilePack event at the Atlantic Union Bank Center on Sunday, April 27. You can sign up for that event .

These meal-packing events are part of a larger effort by the Arkansas-based Tacos 4 Life restaurant chain to donate and pack 10 million meals by June 2025 to celebrate its 10th anniversary.

Watch of the EMU MobilePack event in its Tell Me Something Good segment with Taylor Rizzari.

Thank you to all the volunteers who participated, including those from Park View Federal Credit Union, Merck, and Carmax.

“This project was a bear to organize with so many logistics and details, and the results were truly beautiful,” said Brian Martin-Burkholder, university chaplain for EMU. “Many volunteers reported how much fun it was to pack meals together for a few hours. We’re grateful for the level of participation this project received.”

The Y-Serve club, EMU’s longest-running student organization, plans opportunities over fall and spring breaks for students to volunteer in locations across the East Coast and the South. Over spring break this year, six EMU students traveled to Comer, Georgia, to work with , an intentional Christian community that offers hospitality to refugees and other immigrants. The staff of Jubilee Partners live alongside three to five families as they help them get settled in the United States. 

The community at Jubilee grows fruits and vegetables as a way to provide healthful food, care for the land, and work together outdoors. The six students who traveled there got to participate in this meaningful work. They helped mulch blueberry bushes, plant chestnut trees, dig a new path, and cut out invasive shrubs in the woods. 

Besides their volunteer work, the students explored the 260-acre property, with its fields, forest, river, and even a small waterfall. In the evenings, they played card games with some of the partners and volunteers who live at Jubilee.

Micah Mast, an EMU junior who served as the student leader of the group, chose to go on this trip because his family volunteered at Jubilee Partners for four months when he was only four years old. “I wanted to go back and help out,” Mast said. On the other hand, Ella Richer, a student chaplain in her first year of college, had never been to Georgia but wanted to visit an intentional community. 

Shawna Hurst, a first-year student who helped plan the recent Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference at EMU, saw the trip as a way to meet others who focus on peace and justice. Hurst finds peace work “inspiring, fulfilling, and much needed.” The trip helped her learn more about what happens to refugees who end up in U.S. detention centers.

Erin Loker, a first-year student and Y-Serve leadership team member, said some of her highlights were getting to know the other students who went on the trip and hearing the stories of the people at Jubilee. Every weekday, the community gathers to eat lunch and share noontime devotions, which provided a good opportunity for the students to meet the people living there. Richer reported many interesting conversations with the residents about living in community, choosing to live simply, welcoming refugees, and giving generously.

A highlight for Mast was giving a presentation on how EMU students are pursuing peace and justice. The Jubilee community appreciated learning how students combine their desire for a better world with their faith through events like the Intercollegiate Peace Fellowship Conference and other work EMU Peace Fellowship has been doing.

For Loker, the trip taught her about hard work and simple living. Even though she had never planted trees before, the volunteer work was “a cool experience.”

 “People there shared a lot and lived minimalistic lives,” she said. “It helped me reflect on how much I have that I don’t really need and what’s important to me.”

Hundreds of volunteers from the Harrisonburg community and beyond will help out at a MobilePack event at EMU next month, packing more than 100,000 meals to feed malnourished children around the world.

The EMU Y-Serve student club is hosting the two-day event (held March 21-22) in partnership with the Harrisonburg  restaurant and the  nonprofit. EMU students, faculty and staff, as well as volunteers from local church congregations, retirement communities, businesses and civic organizations will join together for the major meal-packing project at the EMU University Commons.

Register online for a two-hour shift at: 

Brian Martin Burkholder, university chaplain for EMU, said he noticed an  in the local newspaper about the Tacos 4 Life restaurant’s opening and felt that its mission of feeding malnourished children aligned with Y-Serve’s goal of serving others as the hands and feet of Jesus.

“As a university steeped in the Anabaptist faith tradition, EMU has emphasized companioning marginalized people and offering whatever resources we have to meet human need,” he said. “This is another way we can practice our core values of peace and justice and active faith.”

EMU senior Halie Mast, president of Y-Serve, helped organize the volunteer event.

“This is a huge project that our service club has taken on this year, and it’s probably the largest project I’ve ever helped plan,” she said. “A lot of time, planning, and prayer have gone into this undertaking, and I hope that Christ will be elevated through this work.”

This event is part of a larger effort by the Arkansas-based Tacos 4 Life restaurant chain to pack and donate 10 million meals by June 2025 to celebrate its 10th anniversary. For every item sold at Tacos 4 Life locations, the company donates a portion to Feed My Starving Children, which is used to purchase Manna Packs. These rice-based nutritious meal bags are given to missions and humanitarian organizations in more than 70 countries.

Jeremy Hunter, operating partner of the Tacos 4 Life Harrisonburg location, said the 100,000 meals donated by his store for the MobilePack event at EMU amounts to a $29,000 contribution to Feed My Starving Children.

“I’m excited for us to bring the Harrisonburg community together to pack 100,000 meals,” he said, adding that this is the first MobilePack event his location has partnered with. “You all at EMU have beaten JMU to the punch!”

Read more about the event in the Daily News-Record .

During a spring break trip to Atlanta with Y-Serve last week, as she broke bread with families from Central and South America, she was instantly transported back to those days.

“Certain food smells or conversations we would have in Spanish — they would take me back,” the global development major said. “Other meals, like the one we had with the Burundi congregation, were vastly different from anything I’ve ever experienced before.”

Kennel, along with nine other EMU students and University Chaplain Brian Martin Burkholder, spent the week from March 2 to 8 in the Peach State for a Y-Serve service learning trip. Y-Serve is the longest-running student organization at EMU and aims to “serve others as the hands and feet of Jesus.”

The Y-Serve group partnered with , a Georgia-based nonprofit that welcomes and hosts asylum seekers and immigrant families. Together, they attended multicultural worship services, shared meals with asylees from Latin America and Africa and listened to their stories and experiences.

The group met with students at the , a public charter K-5 school that educates refugee, immigrant and local children. They toured downtown Atlanta and the Martin Luther King Jr. National Historic Park. They then traveled about 135 miles south to Americus, Georgia, where they visited the , a racially integrated Christian community and working communal farm founded in 1942.

EMU junior and Y-Serve student leader Ruth Abera treasured the evenings they spent reflecting together as a group. Another highlight of her trip was meeting the founder of , a small coffee truck and coffeeshop in Clarkston, Georgia, that hires resettled refugees and immigrants and provides “a central place where different cultures can come together,” Abera said. 

“After hearing her story, I was like, ‘I’ve known you for five minutes and I want to be just like you,’” she said.

West Virginia

While their Y-Serve group traveled to Atlanta, another headed about 225 miles south and westward to Kimball, West Virginia. Kimball is in McDowell County, which is the third poorest county in the U.S. (2020 Census). From March 4 to 9, three EMU students and one alumnus volunteered with Sharing With Appalachian People (), a ministry program through Mennonite Central Committee, where they repaired houses, connected with local residents and reflected on how to live out their Christian faith.

EMU senior Laurel Evans, a bible, religion and theology major, served as student leader for the West Virginia Y-Serve group. Much of their work included installing metal flashing and a new roof on one side of a house, she said, as well as “lots of repainting.” 

Her favorite part of the trip was getting to know the homeowners whose house they were repairing. 

“They were a lovely couple,” Evans said. “We took long breaks from our work to sit and have coffee with them and talk about our lives and God.”

Peg and Lee Martin serve with Mennonite Central Committee as SWAP location coordinators in Kimball. After their work during the day, Lee Martin would lead the group in devotionals and reflections. That week’s focus, Evans said, was on the Kingdom of God.

“That felt really important to the whole trip — how the Kingdom of God shows up in the small things, and in things we might not consider meaningful, affected how I saw the week,” she said.

Evans, who also led a Y-Serve group with Abera to Kimball over fall break, described the service trip as a “restful and productive experience.”

“I felt really well-rested from the week,” she said, “but I also know I made a decent difference in someone else’s life.”

In just a few days of service work in Harlan, Kentucky, Kora Kornhaus learned an invaluable lesson: her volunteer work was as important as the gifts she opened herself up to receiving in return  – whether good advice, hospitality, a meal, or a story.

Kornhaus and nine other ��ݮ���� students spent their fall break volunteering with (SWAP) in Harlan, Kentucky. The trip was coordinated by Y-Serve (formerly YPCA), a student service organization. Club advisor and University Chaplain Brian Martin Burkholder also accompanied the group.

The trip was the first service work sophomore John Jantzen had contributed to while at EMU, but he had volunteered with projects at camp and convention, “as well as smaller things like helping with MCC canning or school kits.” He was grateful to take a break from his studies: the long weekend was “an opportunity to both relax from the stressors of college life, and take a step back and remember what is important in the real world.”

SWAP, a program of Mennonite Central Committee, works to address substandard housing in eastern Kentucky and West Virginia. The organization’s logo is a cross formed by a  hammer and paintbrush. Volunteers come year-around to help make homes safe, warm and dry. The location has been the site of several past Y-Serve trips, which also happen during spring break.

Kornhaus, the organization’s secretary, drew her lesson from one experience during the weekend: helping a community member who collected aluminum cans as a source of income but had no way to get them to the recycling center. His basement was nearly “three-quarters full of cans,” said fellow volunteer and Y-Serve Co-president Isaac Sawin.

“After a lot of mind-numbing work, we were all feeling fairly exhausted, yet once the man came over and shared about the hardships he’s had to go through in his life and gave me a quick hug, I felt as though the work was worth it,” Kornhaus said. 

The EMU group also fixed an exterior wall and installed siding at a home that SWAP had started to work on in the summer. “When completed, this project will allow the homeowner to have a safer, warmer, and dryer home,” said Stephanie Broersma, SWAP Harlan Location Coordinator. “It was a blessing to have students interacting with the homeowner who is an older woman who lives alone, and the homeowner offering them hospitality.”

The volunteers also helped to assemble pallets of food for a food pantry, install a playground at a school, and make sound absorbers for the SWAP gathering room.

Sophia Sherrill, Y-Serve co-president, said that the most rewarding part of the trip was seeing the “immediate, positive impact we were making with our work, and feeling like we were working alongside people rather than inserting ourselves into the situation. It felt good that we were wanted and appreciated there.”

A bonus was the “absolutely gorgeous views” on their daily three-mile trek from their campsite to the main road.

“I would encourage anyone that’s thinking about volunteering with SWAP to do it,” Sherrill said. “It is a wonderful organization with great people that are really making a difference in their communities.”

Broersma expressed gratitude for the EMU group. “It is a blessing to see young adults interested in serving others in the name of Christ, and we hope that they will continue to find ways to serve wherever they go.”

Hurricane Florence poured 30 inches of rain in Pollocksville, North Carolina in 2018 and caused a storm surge on the nearby Atlantic coast, leading to extensive flood damage to homes in the area.

Over spring break at the beginning of this month, eight students from ��ݮ���� and campus pastor Brian Martin Burkholder went down to help ongoing efforts to rebuild. Video and photography manager Macson McGuigan documented their trip in the photo essay below.

The team travelled as part of Y-Serve, formerly known as the Young People’s Christian Association. They plan service-oriented Y-Trips each fall and spring break, and are the longest-running student organization at EMU. Y-Serve aims to “serve others as the hands and feet of Jesus.”

Other Y-Serve trips this spring took students throughout the southern U.S. on a civil rights tour; to Bethlehem Farm, an intentional community in West Virginia; and to Virginia’s eastern shore to pitch in with Habitat for Humanity.

Y-Serve partnered with Mennonite Disaster Service (MDS) for the trip, which has been rebuilding in the area since last fall.

Jessie Landis digs a post hole for a flight of steps.

Jasmyne Johnston runs screws into the treads on a new set of stairs the team built.

Students display the buried ‘treasures’ they found while digging post holes.

Hannah Thomas sprays insulation into the crevice between the wall and the floor.

Jonas Beachy and Jonathan Reimer-Berg hoist a generator onto the back of the MDS truck.

Jessie Landis works up a batch of concrete with a trowel.

After a long day of work at the job site in nearby Trenton, North Carolina, Katie Meza plays volleyball with another service group from Canada.

Jonas Beachy plays volleyball at the Pollocksville Baptist Church Parsonage, which serves as MDS’s home base in the area.

Jessie Landis delights in the sport.

Jonathan Reimer-Berg focuses intently on an after-dinner game of Dutch Blitz.

Laura Troyer and Jessie Landis share a laugh between cuts with the miter saw.

Jonathan Reimer-Berg mixes concrete.

Reuben Peachey-Stoner cuts lumber for the stairs.

Underneath the house, Jonas Beachy installs fiberglass insulation between floor joists.

Brian Martin Burkholder and Jonas Beachy work on framing.

 Katie Meza and Jessie Landis fill and tamp post holes with dirt while building a handicap-accessible ramp.

Reuben Peachey-Stoner runs screws for the ramp.

Hannah Thomas installs vinyl siding.

Jonathan Reimer-Berg fastens siding to the house.

From left: Jessie Landis, Hannah Thomas, Katie Meza, Jasmyne Johnston, Reuben Peachey-Stoner, Jonathan Reimer-Berg, Jonas Beachy, and Laura Troyer stand on the front deck they built.