Home Depot transforms veterans center in Wilmington

WILMINGTON, NC (WWAY) — Tomorrow is Veterans Day, so today more than 30 Home Depot associates partnered with Good Shepherd Ministries of Wilmington to transform the Sergeant Eugene Ashley Center.

The center is a transitional home for more than 20 veterans.

This local volunteer project is part of the company’s fifth annual celebration of service campaign which started on September 11 and ends tomorrow.

Home Depot has been helping the Sgt Eugene Ashley Center for three years and has been able to do several projects to make conditions feel more comfortable for the men who live there.

“We have done this fence structure, said Wilmington Home Depot Assistant Store Manager Thane Bella. “We have done modifications inside, some painting and some landscaping.”

Navy veteran Louis Bradley was a part of the 18 month program at the center before graduating.

Bradley says, “From homeless being in the shelter, then from there getting into the program, graduating, and then having a place to live. It’s good stuff.”

He now pays rent to live at the center full time.

“It’s really amazing how things are turning out,” he said.

While some parts of the building are getting updated, the history will always remain.

“We have been able to keep some of the things that were originally there, like some of the seats and chalkboards,” said Volunteer Coordinator Whitney Smith.

Smith says without Home Depot’s generosity and support, the transformation would not have been possible.

“Good Shepherd, being a non-profit, it can be a hard sometimes to get the funding for the extra things that may be on the bottom of the list to do, said Smith. “We just haven’t been able to get to it, so that’s where Home Depot comes in. They can help the guys who stay here feel more, feel more at home when they are going through this hard time.”

Since 2011, the Home Depot foundation has invested more than 105 million dollars to provide safe housing to veterans.