Celebration of Service with Team Depot in Indiana

After attending the Celebration of Service in Phoenix a couple weeks ago, I had the honor of seeing the work that Team Depot is doing to help Veterans right here in my own state of Indiana! Along with 120 volunteers from The Home Depot, the folks at Partners in Housing tackled some much needed work on two housing units for Veterans. 

Team Depot feels like “no veteran should be homeless.” So they strive to help as many as they can across the United States. As part of the Celebration of Service, which runs from September 11 through Veterans Day, they will transform 1,000 homes for our veterans.

The project in Indianapolis all began with this wonderful, caring lady, Susan from Partners in Housing. One day she walked into The Home Depot and asked for a $25 gift card to help out with the veterans housing. And after lots of planning, the work in Indianapolis began.

Partners in Housing has 10 properties including the two that Team Depot worked on. The property houses 28 veterans and offers key services to help increase self-sufficiency, including counseling, vocational skills training and money management. Updates like paint, new flooring on the steps, smoke detectors and even 4 brand new kitchens were completed.

One of the residents, (pictured above) is U.S. Navy vet Darryl Boyd, a resident of Linwood Manor, was honorably discharged in 1986 and he spent the next 20 years battling drug addictions, depression and homelessness. After attempting to take his life for the third time, he was placed on suicide watch at the local VA Hospital, where he learned about Partners in Housing. Since moving to Linwood Manor earlier this year, Boyd’s faith has been restored. With a new found desire to give back to his community, Boyd plans to enroll in college soon to obtain a degree in social work.

As you can see, the kitchens are not laid out very well, making it especially difficult for those that have mobility issues. The range opens right on top of the sink area and the refrigerator door also blocks the whole kitchen.

So the volunteers completely remodeled 4 of the units with new cabinets, sink and refrigerator.

Gallons and gallons of paint were added by the volunteers to freshen up the space. This room is the community area that the veterans can go and relax together.

The folks at Ready Set came to help install a new front step area.

And the rest of the landscaping was updated as well.

The sea of orange shirts working was amazing! They all deeply cared about the vets and giving back a little time and effort to the community! With the power of Team Depot volunteers, The Home Depot Foundation has transformed more than 13,000 homes for veterans.

Thousands of The Home Depot’s store associates spend their time off volunteering their talents as members of Team Depot in communities across the country.

You can learn more about The Home Depot Foundation and their role in helping our Veterans. And visit the Team Depot Facebook page for more information, and follow them on Twitter.

And visit the Team Depot Celebration of Service for more inspiring stories!