- YMCA of the Coastal Bend
- $2,086.33 grant from Home Depot Foundation
- Using the grant to redo the girls locker room
The YMCA of the Coastal Bend received over $2000 from the Home Depot Foundation to make renovations to their facility.
The CEO of the YMCA of the Coastal Bend, Gwyn Rupert said that the YMCA is 85 years old and needed some routine upgrades.
"The youth girl's locker room at the YMCA definitely needed some attention, but has unfortunately been on the back burner," Rupert said.
The Home Depot Foundation was able to save the day. Emilio Elizonado is the Store Manager of Home Depot at the Bridgepoint location.
“We went ahead and you know, we were looking for organizations in need and we found the Y-M-C-A with Gwyn Rupert and so the youth lockers, locker rooms and we went ahead and we looked at the project and we saw it needed a lot of work. I am a big believer and I like to pay it forward so we went ahead and helped her apply for the grant and it got approved," Elizondo said.
Some of the problems in the girl's locker room were mold in the carpet and cracking paint on the ceilings.
"The carpet in the youth locker rooms in a wet area definitely wasn't conducive to the area," Rupert said.
The grant was able to cover the materials needed to fix these problems. Elizonado and many of his employees volunteered their time for three days in a row to renovate the girl's locker room.
"We're painting the ceilings, painting the walls, and we're also redoing the floor with some epoxy paint. It's looking really nice."
The Team Depot crew worked for over 25 hours on the project.
The YMCA of the Coastal Bend is extremely thankful for the grant and for the volunteer's time and effort.
"It's a beautiful Saturday today and they could've chosen to be doing anything. But, yet they are here giving back their time to paint a youth locker room for our future, for the little girls that use this facility," Rupert said. "It means the world to us here at the YMCA. It means everything to the parents."
Elizondo and his crew are planning for part two of the project in the future where they renovate the youth boy's locker room next.
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