Albany State selected for ‘Retool your School’

Albany State University is one of 30 HBCUs that won money from Home Depot’s Retool Your School competition.

The competition is open exclusively to HBCUs, after the schools enter the contest they are divided into three clusters based on size. The top ten schools with the most votes in each cluster are then awarded their grant based on the number of votes they received.

This year cluster three, schools with 1,200 students or less, had more votes that clusters one and two combined for a total of 5.5 million votes.

Albany State placed 5th in cluster one, earning them an $30,000 grant to go towards campus improvements. Albany State was the only Georgia school to win money this year.

Out of 59 HBCUs that participated, in the competition 30 schools were awarded grants ranging from $20,000 to $75,000. This year Home Depot awarded a total of $1 million in grants.

Representing Albany State at the winners’ announcement ceremony Home Depot held at the Gathering Spot was Dr. Stanley Pritchett, President of the Atlanta Metro chapter of Albany State’s national alumni association.

“We are honored for Albany State to be recognized for the work that has been done to get the students involved, get the faculty and staff involved and the outstanding alumni all over the country involved in a project such as this,” said Pritchett.

He added that Albany State is among the smaller schools in cluster one with around 5,000 students. Other schools in the cluster like Florida A&M University and Prairie View A&M have around 9,000 students.

Home Depot introduced the competition in 2009 and since then has provided over $5 million in campus improvement grants to nearly 70 percent of all HBCUs. The grants have been used in the past to renovate residence halls, upgrade health facilities and build outdoor eco-classrooms.

Each year Home Depot also awards Campaign of the Year.  For the second year in a row Alabama State University won the award.