Home Depot grant, volunteers help spiff up Knoxville College
Oct 05, 2012 (Menafn - Knoxville News-Sentinel - McClatchy-Tribune Information Services via COMTEX) --Students and staff at Knoxville College joined with Home Depot store associates Thursday to spruce up the campus and build a new handicapped accessible ramp at the student center.
The historically black college won a 10,000 Home Depot Retool Your School grant for the second consecutive year, making the touch-up possible.
Home Depot created the "Retool Your School" program to help historically black colleges and universities make enduring improvements to campuses and facilities.
Interim President Horace Judson said the school's students, staff, alumni and other supporters voted for the school during an online contest that ran Feb. 14 to April 10.
Judson said many of their collegiate competitors have more students and alumni, but the Mechanicsville college's supporters made the difference.
"Out of 60 schools competing, our vote total was the fourth highest," he said.
Judson said he is proud of the students who were volunteering their time to work with Home Depot to complete projects such as building a new outdoor bulletin board, building a handicapped accessible ramp to the Robert H. Harvey College Center as well painting and landscaping.
"We've very grateful to the national Home Depot as well as the people at the Clinton Highway store," he said. "They make the dollars go further because they provide labor."
Darrio Dean, a freshman from the Bahamas, said sprucing up the student center was a positive move.
"This is the place where we live and it is good to keep everything as clean as possible," he said.
David Antrican, assistant manager at the Home Depot off Clinton Highway, said Home Depot gave away 185,000 in grants through the program.
"We feel it is important to give back to the community, especially a place with the history Knoxville College has," he said.
The college was founded in 1875.
Antrican said Hancock Nursery and Stacey's Greenhouse also donated plants and flowers for the landscaping portion of the project.
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