Home Depot Foundation “Doers” Get it Done

A wave of orange swept over Marco Island this week as more than 700 volunteers from The Home Depot Foundation, its vendor partners, and local store associates fanned out across Winterberry and Veterans Community parks for a more than $500,000 volunteer refurbishment project that is part of a grant from The Home Depot Foundation.

After a soaring national anthem and a rousing version of “The Home Depot Cheer” led by local store associates, the crowd yelled in unison, “Kick Ass!” when asked what they were all going to do that day.

And that they did.

“I’ve been in the city business for a while, and I have never seen anything even remotely close to this,” City Manager Mike McNees told the crowd. “We can’t be more appreciative. We thank you from the bottom of our hearts and we can’t wait to see how it all turns out.”

Under sunny skies and cool temperatures, the volunteers got right to work with dozens of projects at both parks, including fresh landscaping and painting; resurfacing the softball field; upgrading the dugouts; building playhouses and bikes for children of veterans, and assembling dressers and grills for formerly homeless veterans, among other activities.

The event is part of The Home Depot’s monthlong “Celebration of Service,” during which hundreds of volunteer projects big and small are staged across the country as part of the foundation’s $750 million commitment to supporting veterans’ causes and the nonprofits that serve veterans.

One such nonprofit is Lee County-based Hearts and Homes For Veterans, founded by Dale Spain, himself a veteran, having served in the United States Marine Corps for 17 years. His organization supports homeless and formerly homeless veterans through a food and hygiene pantry, clothing donations, transportation, and financial assistance.

Volunteers built more than 30 dressers and assembled 45 bikes for the veterans that Spain’s group serves, and The Home Depot Foundation presented him with a surprise $10,000 gift card at the event.

“We do a lot of construction for our vets,” Spain said. “Last year we had over $1 million go back out to veterans in our community, and everything happening today really helps.”

Home Depot’s vendor partners from its garden department were on hand for the project as part of a several-day business meeting on the island.

“My family owns a wholesale nursery out of California,” said Michael Frantz of Frantz Nursery. “We are a vendor of Home Depot’s and we share their values of giving back to our community. We’re delighted each year to attend the Home Depot Foundation events and to do community-based projects like restoring this park,” he said, referring to Veteran’s Community Park.

For Frantz, The Home Depot Foundation’s community work is an important outlet for his own personal philanthropy.

“We spend a lot of time at the nursery growing beautiful plants,” he said. “But there’s more to life than making money. Giving back to veterans, and teaching young people to learn trades, and looking after those who are in need of a home are more important than what we do in our day jobs.”

City officials and the foundation both confirmed that the effort this week isn’t a one-off, but rather the start of an ongoing partnership. While details have yet to be disclosed, Danny Watson, the foundation’s senior specialist who led the effort on Marco, confirmed there are plans in place for another event next fall.

“We’re excited to come back,” Watson said. “You have a high concentration of veterans down here, and we’re excited to get to serve them and bring the foundation back to Marco Island.”

The projects were largely wrapped up by noon on the day of the event and the physical transformation of both parks was immediately noticeable. Representatives from the city, the foundation, and its nonprofit partners toured the sites in the days following and assembled a punch list of additional work to be done. City officials said some projects from the grant will continue in the weeks and months ahead, including much-needed drainage improvements at Winterberry Park.