It started out as a video-store-tape-return box.

Then, when that industry went toes up in the early 2000s, a team from the Leadership Institute of South Puget Sound took the thing in hand and reworked it into a hygiene-item-and-perishable-food-donation box for the Auburn Food Bank, just outside the north Auburn Top Foods.

When that grocery store closed in 2013, the container sat idle outside, until, at the request of the lot’s new owner, much dismayed by the junk, the couches and such that people began dropping off at the site, saw to it that the box made the cross-I-Street boogie to the Food Bank on I Street Northeast.

Where for years, it weathered and rusted outside.

But last week, thanks to the generosity of the gold-plated, bona fide do-gooders who sand-blasted it, repainted and placed fresh signs on it, the receptacle is once more serving the needs of the people who depend on the food bank.

That’s it on your right, just before you pass through Safeway’s north entrance.

The men primarily responsible for rehabilitating the box, Matt deKerrie, an employee of Ferrell Gas, and Mike Harbin, owner of Spectrum Signs, joined Food Bank Director Debbie Christian and Auburn Safeway manager Tim May at the official, put-it-back-into-use event Dec. 5 at 101 Auburn Way S.

“For us, wow, what a location, outside of Safeway. It’s pretty exciting to have that happen.” Christian said.

So, just what can the big-hearted passerby plunk into its dark recesses?

“Oh, absolutely everything,” Christian said. “The box says on it, ‘hygiene items.’ That’s what it started out as originally years ago, because that’s the one thing we are always short on. People can’t buy those things with food stamps. We’re talking toilet paper, toothpaste, deodorant and shampoo. That was the purpose for it in the beginning, but it has become an all-drop box for non perishable food and whatever.”

OK, some things should not go in there. Try to refrain from putting glass and fresh food in there. The food bank checks the box and picks up its contents every day.

“We promised Safeway we would do our best to keep it and the area around it cleaned up,” Christian said.

Now, about the two main guys who brought the container back to life.

DeKerrie had been a member of the original team from the Leadership Institute of South Puget Sound that did the first fix-up of the box before donating it to the food bank in 2003.

Fast forward to 2018.

“Well, Matt came by the food bank one day to make a drop-off of his own donation, and he saw it sitting out there. and since he was one of the original team leads, he said, ‘Wait a minute, we wanted that to be perpetual for you,’ … He took it upon himself and went out and got people to clean it up,” Christian said.

That meant sandblasting it down again to metal, re-priming it, repainting it, and finally, putting fresh lettering on it.

“Matt went out and did all of that. He got Performance Surface and Coating to sand and paint it, and he got Mike Harbin over at Spectrum Signs to resign it, and he got Safeway to say they’d put it out front,” Christian said.