Brookshire Brothers is proud to support Angelina College with the opening of the Roadrunner Market, a food pantry for all on campus. 

The market recently opened with a ribbon cutting ceremony, and Brookshire Brothers donated a commercial-grade freezer to help make this student service possible. The Brookshire Brothers Charitable Foundation also  awarded Angelina College a large grant in early 2022 to help provide food for the pantry.

"Brookshire Brothers and the Brookshire Brothers Charitable Foundation invest in community programs and initiatives that focus on hunger, education and wellbeing, so for us, this was the perfect partnership," said Melissa Crager, public relations and corporate responsibility manager. "When students are hungry, they can't learn as well. The Roadrunner Market provides them what they need so they can focus on their schoolwork, and we are blessed to be a part of that."

The Christian Information & Service Center will be making monthly drop-offs to help keep the market stocked. Executive Director Yolanda Richard said Angelina County is a community, and through it all, we stick together as neighbors, loving each other. 

"It's great partnering with Angelina College because we're a non-profit; all we think about is feeding people," Richard said. "If we can find a source or an avenue to get the food to the people, it's a great partnership."

Krista Brown, executive director of enrollment management and marketing, said the Roadrunner Market is going to meet the needs of students and teachers at the college. It all started with the Student Affairs Division.

"They have worked so hard to make the Roadrunner Market possible," Brown said. "How well it looks is really a reflection of all the partnerships and hard work that Student Affairs has put into this project." 

Angelina College President Michael Simon said this project was a culmination of work among Student Affairs, the Student Government Association and professor Alex Ranc, starting with a food closet that morphed into a drive-in food bank during COVID to reduce the spread of germs. 

Through these initiatives, the college discovered there was a real need on campus.

"The next stage of this development was through what we call the Poverty Initiative," Simon said. "We did an analysis and saw that about a third of the students who attend Angelina College qualify under federal guidelines as living in poverty."

They asked the question, what does that mean for these students as they go to school — often times working more than one job — and what are some of the challenges and obstacles they confront in addition to earning an education. 

Food insecurity was a major issue revealed through this initiative, Simon said. So they worked to find a way to partner with non-profit organizations in the area to make this happen.

"We just want to do whatever we can to remove hurdles so students can earn those credentials they need," Simon said. "We really believe we are changing lives everyday by doing that."