Springfield Church ensures Stone County students receive good nutrition in school
Totes are prepared with snack packets each day for Reeds Spring students and delivered by Life360 Ministry staff.
January 28, 2021
Cindy Hembree
For the past decade, Ted Cederbloom, pastor of the Life360 Church in Springfield, has had a vision and a goal he aimed to reach. In 2009, he observed that most programs to feed the hungry gave their attention to malnourished children in the larger urban areas of the United States. He also noted fewer programs to provide for children with these needs in the smaller cities and rural communities. In 2010, Cederbloom began to focus on those areas. Once he had a solid blueprint on what the needs were, he went to work making the necessary contacts, sharing his vision, and recruiting those who wanted to assist in the mission. He established the Leadership and Development Headquarters in Springfield. Later, working with Convoy of Hope and Farmers to Families, he commissioned a program in which snack packs of nutritious foods would be delivered to area schools for children to have in the afternoon to ensure that the school children would get adequate nutrition during the school day.
After Cederbloom launched the program in Springfield, the pastor had the hope of other communities coming aboard. Spokane School District heard of his program and requested to participate in the snack pack program in 2018, and the Reeds Spring School District signed up the following year.
Each day, Cederbloom’s crew receives shipments from their providers, at what used to be Radio Shack, in the Claybough Plaza. Once the shipment arrives, they begin parting out the items into snack packets, which are put into totes where they are filled and loaded into vans. The totes full of nutritious snacks are taken to the Reeds Spring Schools to be distributed to each classroom. The contents of the packets can vary slightly from day to day. For the most part, the afternoon regimen contains a carton of milk, cheese and crackers, fruit or fruit pouches, and a vegetable component. Occasionally the packet will include chicken. “We want to make sure the kids get good nutritional food [each day] because they may not get to eat again until they get to school the next day.”
The program now serves 2,100 students a day. Thanks to a local pastor’s mindful eye, life is a little better for the children of Stone County and surrounding areas.
Cindy Hembree
For the past decade, Ted Cederbloom, pastor of the Life360 Church in Springfield, has had a vision and a goal he aimed to reach. In 2009, he observed that most programs to feed the hungry gave their attention to malnourished children in the larger urban areas of the United States. He also noted fewer programs to provide for children with these needs in the smaller cities and rural communities. In 2010, Cederbloom began to focus on those areas. Once he had a solid blueprint on what the needs were, he went to work making the necessary contacts, sharing his vision, and recruiting those who wanted to assist in the mission. He established the Leadership and Development Headquarters in Springfield. Later, working with Convoy of Hope and Farmers to Families, he commissioned a program in which snack packs of nutritious foods would be delivered to area schools for children to have in the afternoon to ensure that the school children would get adequate nutrition during the school day.
After Cederbloom launched the program in Springfield, the pastor had the hope of other communities coming aboard. Spokane School District heard of his program and requested to participate in the snack pack program in 2018, and the Reeds Spring School District signed up the following year.
Each day, Cederbloom’s crew receives shipments from their providers, at what used to be Radio Shack, in the Claybough Plaza. Once the shipment arrives, they begin parting out the items into snack packets, which are put into totes where they are filled and loaded into vans. The totes full of nutritious snacks are taken to the Reeds Spring Schools to be distributed to each classroom. The contents of the packets can vary slightly from day to day. For the most part, the afternoon regimen contains a carton of milk, cheese and crackers, fruit or fruit pouches, and a vegetable component. Occasionally the packet will include chicken. “We want to make sure the kids get good nutritional food [each day] because they may not get to eat again until they get to school the next day.”
The program now serves 2,100 students a day. Thanks to a local pastor’s mindful eye, life is a little better for the children of Stone County and surrounding areas.