Auburn College of Education donates personal protective equipment to help area organization prepare for new home

From one new home to another, Auburn’s College of Education recently donated a large amount of personal protective equipment (PPE) to the Food Bank of East Alabama’s Community Market.

The College of Education had used the PPE for past visits to its new building while it was under construction. The college’s new building is no longer in the construction phase and will soon open to classes this summer at the corner of Samford Avenue and Duncan Drive. Meanwhile, the Food Bank of East Alabama’s Community Market is set for a March 24 groundbreaking at a new site at 1600 First Avenue in Opelika – a facility that, when finished within the next year, will more than triple the size of the organization’s current location on Pepperell Parkway.

“This brings us one step closer to bringing the new facility to life,” said Martha Henk, executive director of the Food Bank of East Alabama. “We appreciate Auburn’s College of Education sharing its equipment to help us move ahead on this construction.” 

The donated PPE includes hard hats, bright orange construction vests and safety glasses.

The new building for the Community Market was needed, Henk said, because its current building had simply become too small. Henk said the new building will go a long way in helping the market achieve its mission of providing healthy food for those in need and serving in ways that cultivate dignity, self-sufficiency and community. She added that the food insecurity rate has steeply risen in the past several years. In 2023, Feeding America estimated that 13.4% of Lee County’s population was food insecure. That represents 23,020 people. In 2024, that number had risen to 15.5% of the county population for a total of 27,270 people.