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The Home Depot is launching the "Retool Your School" grant program, designed to provide much-needed improvements to Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) nationwide.The home supply retailer will make a donation equal to 5 percent of the face value of three new commemorative HBCU gift cards, up to $150,000, for grants for on-campus improvement projects. Consumers can purchase the specialty gift cards online at www.homedepot.com/retoolyourschool beginning February 15. To apply for the grants, HBCUs will need to apply by March 15. Consumers will be able to vote for their favorite HBCUs and see top entries on the Web site.
There's an added bonus too: Consumers can also register online for "Retool Your School Friends and Family" updates about the HBCU program. Those who register between Feb.15 and March 14 can also enter to win a cabin for two on the 2010 Tom Joyner Fantastic Voyage in the Caribbean. This annual eight-day cruise trip, organized by media mogul Tom Joyner, raises funds to benefit HBCUs.
Home Depot already has a relationship with our community. In 2006, the store helped bring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. papers to Atlanta with a $1 million donation to acquire the historic papers; $50,000 to Morehouse College to prepare them; and more than $100,000 for the Atlanta History Center to showcase these papers prior to the move to the Woodruff library of the Atlanta University Center. The extensive collection of original documents by Dr. King includes more than 10,000 items, among them 7,000 hand-written notes. The King papers will be a critical part of the exhibition at the Center for Civil and Human rights.
I work as a professor at Morgan State University in the telecommunications department in a new technologically sound building with Mac desktops for each student and state-of-the-art projectors and computers in our podiums. There are still struggles and impediments, though, to competing with other top communications programs -- such as not being able to afford wireless service. And other schools -- engineering and the College of Liberal Arts, for example-- are in desperate need of redevelopment. Many of the smaller, lesser-known HBCUs in the South are in dire straits, because they are still operating with the equipment and buildings they began with.
Most HBCUs don't have the plump endowments of the Ivy League and keep the tuition relatively low to adhere to their original mission: to educate students of color regardless of circumstance. As a result they often rely on charitable contributions.
African Americans are the second largest consumer group in the country, with a combined buying power of $892 billion. Why do we not support our own education institutions more? Why is quality education still a thorny issue for African Americans? What do you think?
Comments: (5)
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By: Belinda on 2/18/2010 11:42AM
Now this is great news! Thank you for the information.
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By: bookman on 2/18/2010 2:01PM
empty gesture. these much needed renovations cost millions of dollars. $150,000 is a mere drop in the bucket. if home depot is sincere, they need to throw some major dollars behind helping out HBCU's.
they want that black consumer dollar and if you ask me, this all about P.R.
if they wanna show me they're sincere, they need to go in to these schools, on the Home Improvement TV show tip, and change the lives of the students, teachers and university's by building and rehabbing some stuff. let me see that bus move out of the way to reveal some beautiful building at the likes of alabama state! then i'll take home depot seriously.
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By: Sudi on 2/18/2010 8:38PM
Another commercial disguised as help. Whatever.
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By: JOHN on 2/21/2010 12:11PM
What amazes me most here is not the Home Depot contribution, but the immediate negative reaction to the story. What does not surprise me is the expectation of entitlement to homage paid by businesses. I say this as a Black Business owner who has experienced the mandate to "support the Black Community" whenever asked for "donations" to support (insert your cause here). Requests are nearly always prefaced with "I KNOW you get a lot of business from our community, so I KNOW you would want to support...".
First, with the exception of barbers, hair stylists and Bar B Que stands, most businesses, including mine, generate less than 15% of annual gross revenue from "us".
Secondly, nearly 85% of charitable contribution requests (in over 25 years) have come from that 15%, and less than 2% of those requests have come from people who have ever spent as much as $1 with my company (a phenomenon shared with nearly every Black Business Owner I know).
Sadly, the last characteristics are also most detrimental. Inconsistent service utilization, slow payment, and bad debt are far in excess of the prediction as a percentage of statistical population.
Many businesses have internal directives and personal desire to enhance the communities in which they operate, but there is no legal mandate. We should embrace the efforts made and help improve the efforts through positive involvement, not condemnation for the attempt. Home Depot is no different than my business when deciding where to allocate reinvestment of profits, and during these leaner times, all of our institutions, including HBCU's need support from any willing source. I applaud this effort, and encourage more as a Home Depot customer and SHAREHOLDER.
In the meantime, we of the huge consumer economic base, can allocate $10-$99 each, per year to a fund dedicated solely to endow our HBCU's. This should be done by those of us who did or did not earn our degrees at an HBCU, did or did not go to college, but who have all benefited from the contributions of HBCU's. The next time you enter that designer clothing store, eat at that favorite restaurant or sip that favorite name branded beverage to a new height of lucidity... locate the address of an HBCU, and write a check to the endowment or general fund. You might also invite everyone on your email list, your snail mail list, at Church and work to do the same. There are more dollars available this way, and 100% goes directly where needed.
Imagine what HBCU sports would look like if we directed our children there instead of to non HBCU temples of sports where few Black coaches are deemed fit to become "Great Coaches" of the best of our best. HBCU's would have much bigger venues and bowls would beg for their involvement. Losing non HBCU's would re-evaluate the position they take in the hiring process, and the "great recruiter" on staff would finally get to be seen as a great potential head coach as well. Where are the requests for homage from 2-5 million dollar a year coaches and their $40 million athletic programs built upon the talents of our children?
If you really have a Home Depot tack in your tail, maybe directing the above effort through them, with letters saying "thanks for what you're doing, but how about a bigger percentage?" might go further than a quiet BV comment they are unlikely to read.
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By: LAM on 2/21/2010 3:08PM
AMEN, AMEN AND AMEN!!!! TELL IT LIKE IT TIS!!!!
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