Home Depot Foundation Commits $1 Million to Expand Skilled Trades Education Grants

The Home Depot Foundation committed an initial $1 million to expand its Path to Pro Education Grants program nationwide, announcing grants of up to $10,000 each to help schools and training organizations modernize the spaces and equipment that feed the construction trades pipeline.

Accredited K-12 schools, community and technical colleges, and nonprofit organizations with existing construction skilled trades programs are all eligible to apply. The Foundation framed the investment as a direct response to what it described as a "massive retirement cliff" hitting the skilled trades industry over the next decade, a generational turnover that threatens to outpace the supply of trained workers entering the field.

The grants are intended to fund concrete improvements: updated training spaces, new tools, and equipment purchases that strengthen construction trades certification offerings. The Education Grants sit inside Path to Pro, the Foundation's broader $50 million initiative targeting the construction skilled labor gap.

Path to Pro operates across several tracks beyond the new grant program. In partnership with Home Builders Institute (HBI), the military arm of the program provides exiting service members with an industry-recognized pre-apprenticeship certification, known as PACT, delivered annually through 10 U.S. military bases. The high school and youth program, run with HBI and Construction Ready, brings curriculum and hands-on training to students in hundreds of schools across the country. The Foundation has also awarded hundreds of scholarships nationwide to students pursuing trade college or postsecondary programs, with scholarship administration handled in partnership with the SkillPointe Foundation.

For workers already on the floor at Home Depot, the investment reflects the same workforce challenge associates see from the other side of the service desk every day: contractors and pros struggling to find qualified help, apprenticeship pipelines that dried up over decades of pressure toward four-year degrees, and shop classes that lost funding before many current associates were old enough to pick up a circular saw. The Path to Pro site notes that technical college and certificate programs cost roughly a third of a four-year degree, a gap that makes trades training an increasingly compelling path for the next generation entering the workforce.

The nationwide expansion of the Education Grants was announced March 10, 2026. Application and eligibility details for both the national program and a separate Southern California track are available through the Foundation's corporate pages at corporate.homedepot.com.