Home Depot Announces 2019 Retool Your School Award Recipients with Guests Shannon Sharpe and Rickey Smiley (3861 hits)
The Home Depot Announces Its 2019 Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program Award Recipients with Special Guests Shannon Sharpe and Rickey Smiley. Ten Historically Black Colleges and Universities Were Awarded a Total of $500,000 in Campus Improvement Grants
The Home Depot’s Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant program held its 2019 Winners Ceremony to announce this year’s grant recipients. Ten HBCUs were awarded a total of $500,000 in grants to make sustainable campus improvements across their campuses. Nine schools were given $50,000 each in grants based on consumer voting. The tenth $50,000 grant went to Tennessee State University for winning the first ever “Campaign of the Year Award” for its original, innovative and effective campaign.
To date, the program has awarded more than $2.6 million dollars in grants to HBCUs.
The ten winning schools were selected by a combination of cumulative online voting scores and grant proposals that were submitted by the schools, and judged by a panel of distinguished judges, including Howard University alumnus, and film and television star Laz Alonso, Dr. Ivory Toldson, President and CEO, QEM (Quality Education for Minorities) Network; Gregory Moore, Esq., Commissioner, Southern Intercollegiate Athletic Conference (SIAC); Michael Tabb, Managing Partner, Red Rock Global; and Melissa Brown, Senior Manager, Marketing, The Home Depot.
This year, The Retool Your School Program welcomed HBCU Alumnus, NFL Hall of Famer and current co-host of FOX Sports show, Skip and Shannon: UNDISPUTED, Shannon Sharpe, as the Keynote Speaker. Rickey Smiley, HBCU Alumnus, comedian and radio host will serve as the Winners’ Ceremony co-host.
“We’re very excited about the ten-year anniversary of the Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program,” says Melissa Brown, Senior Marketing Manager at The Home Depot. “The program has great momentum and allows us to make a long-lasting contribution to our nation’s treasured Historically Black Colleges and Universities.”
Established in 2009, The Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program strives to give back to our nation’s HBCUs what they have so generously given to their communities — a strong foundation, renewed purpose and distinctive character. The ten winning schools will begin their sustainable projects in the summer of 2019.
The 2019 Home Depot RETOOL YOUR SCHOOL Winners
AWARD
CLUSTER 1
CLUSTER 2
CLUSTER 3
$50,000
Alabama A & M University
Alcorn State University
Fisk University
$50,000
Southern University
Mississippi Valley State University
Lane College
$50,000
Jackson State University
Coahoma Community College
Meharry M. College
Clusters were based on school population size
Cluster 1: Student enrollment of 4,000 or more
Cluster 2: Student enrollment of 3,999–1,201
Cluster 3: Student enrollment with 1,200 students or less
