University of New England

UNE donates dump truck with snow plow to Auburn food bank that had its new snow plow stolen

The University of New England donated a 1987 Dodge Ram 350 dump truck with a snow plow to the Good Shepherd Food Bank in Auburn. The charitable organization had its brand-new snow plow stolen around Thanksgiving.

UNE officials had planned to put the truck in the University’s internal surplus materials auction next week, but a UNE employee saw the stolen truck story on the TV news and proposed to administrators that UNE offer the truck as a gift.

Paul Tarr, operations manager at the food bank, was contacted, and he gladly accepted the UNE gift. Both UNE and the Good Shepherd Food Bank are nonprofit organizations. Good Shepherd picked up the truck on Dec. 7, 2005.

In addition, a challenge to the UNE community to donate food and money for the food bank generated boxes and boxes of food, including lots of personal food items from students living on campus.  The boxes were loaded into the cab of the donated truck before it left campus on a flatbed truck, headed for Auburn. The UC community also donated $223 in cash and checks to the food bank.

(Press release issued Dec. 7, 2005)