A new local organization is providing additional food to the students of the Neelyville R-IV School District.
The Life 360 Community Services is a nonprofit organization, which goes into rural areas and operates through donations and government grants.
Sloan and Erin Parker brought the organization to Neelyville in recent months with its first project, helping the school’s students have enough food.
The organization brings totes of food to classes at the end of the day. Teachers, Sloan said, can open the tote and students take what they want or need. They aren’t expected to take anything.
“We provide something for each food group for every student,” he said. “We don’t have hardly any that gets left any more. We did for the first couple days, where they do leave some of the stuff that’s good for them like carrots.”
Sloan said teachers can keep the leftovers for whatever they need, such as giving snacks in class, taking it to families in need, donating to other organizations or keeping it for themselves.
Sloan said the project first got started in October when the two spoke with people at the main headquarters of Life 360 in Springfield.
“We were able to work it out to where we could start as soon as the kids came back to school,” he said.
Erin grew up in the Neelyville school district, Sloan explained. The two got married in 2002 and their children attended Hillview Elementary School. They moved back to the area in 2019.
As a result of their connection to Neelyville and the school district, the Parkers wanted a way to give back to that community.
Superintendent Debra Parish said the Parkers are to be commended for organizing the program and providing this service.
“I have heard nothing but positive comments from the students, staff and community regarding this program,” she said. “I have worked with children and young adults for over 30 years, and I know that at the end of the school day, they are typically famished.
“So, it is great that Life 360 provides all students with nutritious, healthy and great tasting snacks at the end of the school day. It is also beneficial for those students who are staying after school for extracurricular activities to be able to have such high quality snacks to tide them over until they can have dinner.”
The Parkers secured a building Dec. 28, and the program is now housed at 403 Hart St., which is down the road from the Neelyville campus.
The location is the former home of Petty’s Pig & Pie, which meant it came with the equipment the Parkers needed.
“It already had commercial refrigeration, so I didn’t have to have that shipped in. It was already there,” Sloan said. “It was the perfect size. We really just came in, signed a lease, opened the doors and got our first food delivery. It was really amazing to see how fast it came together.”
Sloan said the first delivery of food came on Dec. 30 from Springfield grocers.
When students returned to classes Jan. 4, Life 360 was ready.
Sloan said the first week of the program went well.
They experienced some hiccups, like every new organization does, Sloan said, but have reached a stride at this point.
“It took us a few days to get our systems together, to figure out the best way to do it,” he said. “The students really seem to be benefiting from it. More than one teacher has pulled me to the side and told me stories already about how much it’s helping.
“My wife and I went to a girls basketball game the other night, and as soon as I walked in, there were students going ‘there’s the food guy,’ and they took me and introduced me to their mom or whoever. It seems to be really making the kind of influence that we hoped it would.”
Sloan said the organization receives food shipments from Springfield grocers, but it also has formed a partnership with Tyson Foods and Plum Organics.
The hope is this is just the beginning for Life 360 Neelyville.
Sloan said they hope to expand Life 360 into job skill services, community revitalization projects, a mobile medical clinic and eventually building a “healthy, outward-focused” church.
While Life 360 isn’t a faith-based organization, he said, it is faith-led.
“This is our entry into the community, to helping it,” he said. “We hope this is just the beginning.”
Sloan said anybody interested in donating, partnering or volunteering with Life 360 can contact him at 573-429-0798, by email at sloan@life360.org or on Facebook at Life 360 Neelyville.