Career Services will be hosting a career-networking event, “Missions Throughout Your Career,” on Tuesday at 12:00 p.m. in the Alumni Room. Career Services has invited Justin Young, director of new store openings for Tacos 4 Life, and Kristen Young, to speak at the event.
Justin and Kristen graduated from Ouachita Baptist University in 2014, and quickly jumped into the entrepreneur world.
“Justin has done a lot of outreach to universities in regards to recruiting, so we had been in conversation about how Tacos 4 Life can have a presence on campus and help with career initiatives,” said Rachel Jones, Director of Career Services.
The lunchtime event will allow students to gain a perspective on a very unique type of mission work. Tacos 4 Life is a charitable restaurant that donates one meal for every meal bought. Through the sales of tacos, quesadillas, burritos, salads and rice bowls, Tacos 4 Life is able to partner with Feed My Starving Children (FMSC) and donate 22 cents of every meal to the purchasing of rice packs. FMSC is a Christian organization that puts 90 percent of donations toward feeding children. Last year, they provided starving children with over 272 million meals.
The restaurant specifically asks FMSC to send their meals to Honduras, Swaziland, and Africa. These meals not only feed the children, but the food serves as a foundation for education, medical care, and skills training. In October, they celebrated 2 million meals provided to date.
The addition of Tacos 4 Life catering has been a tremendous asset to the restaurant’s “meal4meal” initiative. When an event is catered by the Mexican restaurant, every person’s meal donates two meals to hungry children.
“Tacos 4 Life is an outstanding organization with a great mission, created by OBU alum, with delicious food,” said Jones.
If students are not specifically interested in Tacos 4 Life, they are still encouraged to come to the event.
“This event is not specifically to recruit students to begin working for Tacos 4 Life, but to encourage them on the bigger impact you can have in your career after graduation,” said Jones.
It is known that most mission work requires a highly devoted and passionate person. Missionaries are commonly identified with work done directly in foreign countries, but Tacos 4 Life is one of many companies that have broken that mold. While Tacos 4 Life directly impacts children in other countries, with some employees even making their way overseas, most of the work is done here in the United States.
“I come to work every day with a passion to work really hard and work with excellence, because children’s lives depend on it,” said Justin, “Tacos 4 Life has a mission to help end childhood starvation, and it is a blessing to get to wake up every day and be a small part of that story.”
This company provides the perfect outlet for someone looking to do mission work in a familiar environment.
“I want students to know that even if they haven’t been called to full time ministry, we are all capable and called to contribute to the Kingdom in whatever career path we are on,” said Jones.
This event is open to all faculty and staff, and the Young’s will have a booth set up in the Student Center for students to visit them in a one-on-one environment. For more information, contact Rachel Jones at jonesrm@obu.edu.
By Ali Kinsey
