Home Depot plans to bring some 1,500 employees to volunteer in 10 urban markets across the United States for the 2005 celebration of National NeighborWorks Week.

When it comes to rallying volunteers for an event, few partner organizations can match the capacity of Home Depot, which has some 350,000 employees across the country. The company, supporting the work of its nonprofit foundation, plans to bring some 1,500 employees to volunteer in 10 urban markets across the United States for the 2005 celebration of National NeighborWorks® Week, a week of community revitalization activities held each year in June. NeighborWorks Week 2005 will be held June 4-11.
View letter of support. [PDF]

The Home Depot Foundation granted NeighborWorks America $1 million to support community development activities in 2005. Half of the grant will help fund National NeighborWorks Week. The remaining $500,000 will sponsor a new green building curriculum at the NeighborWorks Training Institute, grants to support local green build/healthy home activities, and scholarships for community development professionals who wish to participate in the training.

The Home Depot Foundation, launched in October 2002, sees its new partnership with NeighborWorks America as a “natural fit” for its philanthropic goals, said program manager Fred Wacker.

“We’re very excited about our partnership with NeighborWorks America,” said Wacker. “Knowing National NeighborWorks Week has been around for 22 years and that NeighborWorks America has a large network of local organizations—we saw that as a great opportunity to do grantmaking.”

The foundation administers two grant-making programs. The “Affordable Housing, Built Responsibly” program supports the construction and renovation of homes so that they are energy-efficient and the depletion of natural resources is minimized. The Foundation’s “Healthy Community and Wildland Forests” program supports initiatives to protect and restore both urban and rural forests.

NeighborWorks Training Institutes, which draw anywhere from 1,100 to 1,700 participants at major events held in cities across the country five times a year, provide The Home Depot Foundation with an excellent opportunity to promote the concept of green building, said Wacker. “Training Institutes allow us to get people, particularly construction managers, trained in the concepts of green building. We also know that these classes also attract participants from the banking and insurance industries, as well as local governments, so they also provide us with a way to open their eyes to green building in a way that could impact how they work.”

 

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