When you channel donations through the orange door at Home Depot, you build supports for local kids who don't have a foundation.
The hardware store has a national campaign underway whereby customers can donate at the cash register to help young people without a safe, stable home have a dependable roof over their heads. Rather than create redundant programs, Home Depot officials sought out agencies in the regions of their stores that were already doing this work. In Prince George they found the Native Friendship Centre.
"The Orange Door Project is committed to putting an end to youth homelessness by providing youth with the housing and life-skills they require to establish independent, productive lives," said Peg Hunter, chair of the Home Depot Canada Foundation. "Together, with the support of our Prince George customers, we can help Canada's most vulnerable youth realize their potential and build brighter futures."
That support comes $2 at a time. Each customer is given the option at the checkout till to add two bucks or more toward the local cause. Those who say yes get their name on a miniature paper orange door that is prominently pasted where the public can see the names and the collective growth of the project. Hunter said it's an initiative already doing the work of putting walls and roofs around at-risk young people in Prince George.
"The Prince George Native Friendship Centre Society operates the Reconnect Youth Village - Youth Shelter," she explained. "They provide a voluntary youth-centered service that provides safe, secure, stable and nurturing emergency drop-in shelter services and daily integrated service programming to high risk youth."
One hundred per cent of the money raised in Prince George stays in the community for the Reconnect Youth Village initiative. The Home Depot's research data told them there were about 6,000 kids across Canada on any given night who did not have a home to shelter them. The company took aim at this fundamental social problem with a promise to raise $10 million over the next three years.
