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Tuskegee launches annual bid for Home Depot ‘Retool Your School’ grant

February 25, 2019

Home Depot Retool Your School banner image

Contacts:
Michael Tullier, Office of Communications, Public Relations and Marketing
Burt Rowe, Tuskegee National Alumni Association

Through the leadership of the Tuskegee National Alumni Association, Ƶ seeks a “four-peat” in The Home Depot’s annual “Retool Your School” campus-improvement grant program. As a social media-driven grant competition, it will be up to the Tuskegee family to support the university’s efforts to capture the top available prize of $50,000.

Voting begins on Monday, Feb. 25 and extends through Sunday, Apr. 14. Unlike previous years, grant awards this year will rely solely on a popular vote that combines unlimited daily online voting at and social media “voting” that counts Twitter and Instagram posts that include the hashtag #Tuskegee_RYS19.

For posts to either social network to count, the user’s account must be public; however, there is no limit to the number of times the hashtag can be used in a day. Only one use of the hashtag per post will count toward the overall vote totals.

“At Tuskegee, we pride ourselves as winners,” said Burt Rowe, national president of the Tuskegee National Alumni Association. “To remain Retool Your School winners this year, we’re going to need more than 300,000 total online and social media votes by Apr. 14. We need our alumni, friends and fans to start posting — and to keep posting — with our hashtag until we have the $50,000 check in our hands.”

This year — instead of first-, second- and third-place prizes in each cluster — the top three schools in each cluster will each receive a $50,000 grant prize. The 70 HBCUs eligible to compete in this year’s competition will be placed into one of three clusters based on their enrollment. As in past years, Tuskegee will compete in Cluster 2 against other schools whose enrollment ranges from 1,201 to 3,999 students.

Rowe highlighted the ongoing partnership between TNAA and the university’s Student Government Association, Pre-Alumni Council, Office of Facilities and Capital Projects, and Office of Communications, Public Relations and Marketing in the program’s ongoing success. Through the leadership of these and other campus and alumni groups, last year’s $50,000 Retool Your School grant funded the construction of a student social hub on the west side of the campus.

Established in 2010, The Home Depot’s “Retool Your School” program strives to give back to the nation’s HBCUs that have generously provided their communities with a strong foundation, a renewed purpose and a distinctive character. For more information about the program, including contest rules and guidelines for social media/online voting, visit www.retoolyourschool.com.

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