Paine College wins $150,000 Home Depot ‘Retool Your School’ grant

AUGUSTA, Ga. (WJBF)- Students at Paine College and many others voted to help the HBCU win $150,000 though the Home Depot “Retool Your School” program

It’s a grant awarded to historically black colleges and universities, investing in the improvement of their institutions.

The Home Depot “Retool Your School” program allows people to vote for an HBCU to win funding that will go toward fixing up its campus.

“And we are using this grant for what we’re calling relaxing green spaces, so they’ll be benches around campus with charging station for our students and gazebo things like that to make it a more attractive and useful environment for our students,” said Dr. Cheryl Evans Jones, Paine College President.

Home Depot has awarded 42 HBCUs with nearly $3 million in grants for campus enhancements this year.

WJBF spoke to Paine College president Dr. Chelyn Evans Jones who says this is the first time Paine has won this grant.

“So our students, our faculty, our staff, our alumni, and our friends all came together to make sure we won home depot’s retool your school.”

She says she’s grateful for the help from the community to make this possible

“Ss you know Paine College is the CSRA only HBCU and I think it’s incumbent upon the entire community to do whatever they can to support Paine College and while we are extremely grateful and appreciative to all of those who voted in the home depot retool your school contest i’ll like to encourage those who are not directly affiliated with Paine College”

Jones also says they’re always working to improve their campus and there are plenty of other campaigns you can get involved in to help. 

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