For the ninth consecutive year, The Home Depot is continuing to give back to our nation’s Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs), and today announced that voting has begun for the 2018 Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program. Since 2010, the program has awarded more than 1.8 million dollars in grant money to our nation’s HBCUs to make sustainable improvements.
This year, The Home Depot’s Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program will award nine deserving HBCUs $360,000 in grant funds for campus improvements. Participating universities and colleges with the highest number of votes between February 26th and April 15the will then advance to the final round of the program, where each school will submit a project proposal.
During this period, the HBCU community can cast votes in the following ways:
- By casting votes online at www.retoolyourschool.com
- By using the school’s designated hashtag to cast social votes through Twitter and Instagram
A panel of distinguished judges will evaluate the proposals based on The Home Depot’s criteria. Judges will consider the quality of each proposal and the school’s ability to execute the project within the specified budget. Proposals for all three grant levels must highlight how each project will make a lasting, positive impact on the HBCU campus.
Participating schools are categorized into three clusters, based on school student population size. Each of the clusters will have three winners vying for one $50,000, one $40,000 and one $30,000 grant.
Clusters are divided based on the following criteria:
- Cluster 1 schools with a student enrollment of 4,000 or more
- Cluster 2 schools with a student enrollment of 1,201–3,999 students
- Cluster 3 schools with 1,200 students or less
The announcement of the nine winning schools will take place on May 1, 2018 at the annual Retool Your School Winners’ Ceremony at The Home Depot Store Support Center in Atlanta, GA.
Last year’s ceremony welcomed Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed, actor Laz Alonso and renowned actor, speaker and author Hill Harper.
The Retool Your School Program has been recognized by the White House Initiative on HBCUs and has received the Atlanta Mayor’s Phoenix Award. In addition, the program received enormous praise from Black Hollywood’s brightest stars who showed their support for the Retool Your School Program and their favorite HBCUs at the 2018 African American Film Critics Association Awards Dinner.
“Since its inception, The Retool Your School Program has funded sustainable projects for HBCUs like eco-friendly classrooms, refurbished basketball courts, modernized health clinics, and communal student space upgrades,” says Melissa Brown, senior marketing manager at The Home Depot. “We are extremely proud of the ongoing work, commitment, and investment that we are making 365 days a year in the African American community and in helping to preserve the rich legacy of our nation’s treasured HBCUs.”
For more information on The Home Depot’s Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program, visit www.retoolyourschool.com.
