The rains hit Atlanta hard last week, and The Home Depot Foundation partnered with the Company to help those impacted here in our hometown. That meant making donations to the Red Cross, which was providing shelter and food to those who were driven from their homes, and local governments struggling to keep up with the needs of their residents and to assess the damage. We donated almost $50,000 just in bottled water, and we made a further commitment that we are standing ready to help when the rebuilding begins.
There was quite a flurry of activity among the staff: assessing the situation, vetting requests and coordinating the logistics of the donations - scheduling the delivery of 10 truckloads of water is harder than you might think! What struck me in the midst of all of this, as CNN covered the devastated areas of the area, was how our days went on pretty much as scheduled, and how the Foundation works in communities in so many ways - even during the course of one week.
As we were helping our neighbors in Atlanta, our month-long Celebration of Service had Home Depot associates across the country busy in their communities. Last week, hundreds of our associates completed 33 projects - and prepared for 31 more this week. (See the complete calendar). In each of these places, we were making a tangible difference in the places people live and work and the quality of people’s lives - whether by converting a warehouse into a 60-bed shelter in Boise, creating an outdoor classroom at an elementary school in Miami or making a library wheelchair accessible in Scottsboro, Ala. At the end of the day’s work, our associates had made a place better with their sweat equity.
But there are other, less direct ways, that we improve communities as well. During that same period, I attended a meeting of the sustainability officers of almost 70 cities who are leading efforts to make their hometowns greener, healthier and more economically stable. It was the first time that they had all gotten together, and they learned a great deal from each other in terms of what to do and what to avoid doing as well. I also met with board members of a children’s hospital to help them brainstorm new ways to attract donors and accompanied the company’s CEO to speak to a business leadership group and to an organization that supports the local police force. Later in the week we had a discussion with our nonprofit partner about the best way to continue to make progress in New Orleans toward rebuilding homes for those who lost everything to Hurricane Katrina, despite the economic and political hurdles. While all important, I didn’t leave any of these with something concrete to demonstrate how our work had benefited anyone.
I love the immediacy of our volunteer projects: that wonderful feeling of accomplishment when you can see the tangible results of your work. But to work for a foundation requires patience, too. Obviously, anyone who has watched the recovery of New Orleans knows change can take time. But you don’t build any homes, create economic stability for a neighborhood or grow civic leaders overnight either. So we keep giving our sweat equity while we are investing in the long-term as well. And in each of our activities we keep our focus on our ultimate goal of better homes, better communities and better lives for each of us.
We’ve adopted a 20-acre park near downtown Atlanta for the year, and this was the third of four workdays we’ll have there. The neighborhood has been trying to transform this piece of wild woodlands into an accessible natural area for about 5 years, but was making slow progress. With 75 people working for four 6 hour projects, you can accomplish a huge amount of work.
I was a little cynical about creating a day of service around 9/11, but given the conversations this morning as we gathered at the park, it is clearly an appropriate way to commemorate the day. Each of us shared the story of where we were when the planes hit the towers - stories we would never forget. I recalled that I was in the hospital after having our second child the day before, and I”m always a bit sad that his birthday is linked in my mind to what happened during the first days of his life.
Given what was on everyone’s minds, thinking about it now, I believe it was a gift to be able to come together as a team and to work collectively to create something constructive for our neighbors to share. In a few hours, we saw the landscape transformed with trails, bridges and a new meadow where kids can run.
The day started with a slightly somber tone, but as we left, a little wet and muddy from occasional rain with sore hands and backs, our moods had lifted. I left with a changed point of view about the best way to spend a day associated with grief, and I hope that from now on, when asked about my son’s birthday, I’ll remember what happened the day after his 8th birthday as well as what happened on that day in 2001.
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