Home Depot backs Carter Work Project build in Atlanta with volunteers

Team Depot associates spent five days on the ground in Atlanta’s Sylvan Hills neighborhood, helping Habitat for Humanity push ahead on 24 homes at Langston Park, a new master-planned community built around single-family homes, duplexes and townhomes. The work put Home Depot’s volunteer arm in the middle of Habitat’s 40th Jimmy and Rosalynn Carter Work Project, a return to Atlanta for the first time since 1988.

The Home Depot Foundation was a $1 million Diamond Sponsor of the build, and the company said 750 volunteers worked each day from May 4 through May 8, including Team Depot associates. Habitat said nearly 150 volunteers from Atlanta-based The Home Depot and Team Depot worked alongside future homeowners at Langston Park, turning a company-sponsored event into a hands-on recruiting and retention tool that is visible to associates, store leaders and the community.

For Home Depot workers, the project carried more than photo-op value. The build echoed the practical skills that matter on the sales floor and in the lot: measuring, lifting, planning, problem-solving and finishing work safely on a deadline. Habitat and Atlanta Habitat described Langston Park as Atlanta Habitat’s newest master-planned community in historic Sylvan Hills, with homes connected to MARTA, the Atlanta BeltLine and nearby green spaces. The development is part of a larger 68-unit community, and the five-day build was designed to deliver 24 new homes in one coordinated effort.

Home Depot tied that effort to its own identity as a company that wants associates to see volunteerism as part of the job culture, not a side activity. Heather Prill, director of Team Depot and strategic partnerships for The Home Depot Foundation, and her father, Paul, both helped build Habitat homes in Americus, Georgia, more than 25 years ago. Prill said her family was “born into a family of service from day one.” The foundation said engaging associates in projects like the Carter Work Project reflects two of the company’s founding values, giving back and doing the right thing.

The Atlanta return also added weight for longtime Habitat watchers. Atlanta Habitat said the Carters helped build 21 homes in the Edgewood community during the 1988 Carter Work Project, making this year’s Atlanta-hosted build the first since then. Habitat said the Carter Work Project has involved more than 109,600 volunteers in 14 countries and helped build or improve 4,472 homes since 1984. The Home Depot Foundation said it has donated more than $66 million to Habitat for Humanity International since 2008, underscoring how the company’s partnership footprint now reaches well beyond a single volunteer week.