Home Depot salutes area veterans with community project Veterans Day 2020
(Seguin) – While veterans were being honored and recognized at this year’s Veteran’s Day Program in Seguin, a team of orange was hammering away at a very special surprise at Seguin’s American Legion Hall.
In a salute to veterans all across the nation, Home Depot in Seguin unveiled a new outdoor space for the veterans and members of the American Legion Post #245.
Store Manager Tory Reed says the project is the least that Home Depot could do for such a deserving group of heroes.
“Home Depot does projects for our veterans and we are doing more also for our first responders due to COVID, responders, medical etc. But, being Veteran’s Day, we wanted to make sure our first project was going to be for veterans, so we are building a little tranquil space in the back with a fence. We are going to put a grill in there, a heater, some lighting so that they can have some meditation area for their vets that are suffering from PTSD that want to get a space to meditate and then we are also building a planter and bench for them to sit, look at flowers and that kind of stuff,” said Reed.
In giving back, Reed says it was the store’s employees who did the honors by building the new space on Wednesday.
“I have 10 Home Depot associates including myself, all volunteering. It is their day off. One of our values is giving back to our communities so they are living their values by giving back to their community and taking care of our veterans today,” said Reed.
Felisa Ramirez, the commander for the American Legion, says she is so excited about the new fenced space created behind the local post. She says words can not describe the gratitude that she has for Home Depot and for its group of employees who volunteered their time.
“This is an amazing project. I mean when community and the veteran organizations mesh up together, wonderful things happen. We are blessed that Home Depot, Tory Reed, their store manager, reached out to me and our organization to see what they could do. I mean, I really didn’t know what to ask for when they gave us ideas. What has transformed r our most, it’s an amazing thing. This bench planter is going to be used by veterans to come out here for a safe quiet area. That back area is going to be used for our PTSD, for meditating just to get away from the noise of the world. They donated this grill that we fired up today so that we could feed all our veterans that came in. They gave us some ceiling fans that we are going to install inside that is going to help with the airflow,” said Ramirez.
As store manager, Reed says it’s community partnerships like these that help her appreciate her role with the company even more.
“For me, myself, a military brat, my dad was in the army for 30 something years and so military is my heart and we wanted to make sure that we were doing something that veterans going forward would have to see and to have a fence is permanent. We don’t want recognition that it came from the Home Depot. That’s not what we are here for. We are just here to let them know that there is people in their community that care about what they have done for our country and what they continue to do for our country,” said Reed.
For years, Home Depot has been recognized for assisting the needs of its employees who are veterans. This year, the company launched a new program that will guarantee employment opportunities to associates who are spouses of relocating members of the military. The company has also helped with housing for its veteran employees – even surprising some with their mortgage payments. This year, Home Depot was recognized as a 2021 Top Military Friendly company for the 19th year in a row.