The INSIDER - 2021 Year End Edition

Home Depot Retool Your School Success

RETOOL YOUR SCHOOL: PRESIDENT’S LIVING ROOM PATIO RENOVATION

The newly-renovated President’s Living Room Patio.

Thanks to the dedication and hard work of alumni, students, faculty, and staff, Texas College was awarded a $30,000 campus improvement grant through the 2021 Home Depot Retool Your School Grant Program competition. The grant was utilized to renovate the President’s Living Room Patio in the Willie Lee Glass Building. With a combined team of devoted volunteers, which included Home Depot employees and Texas College students, faculty, and staff, the project began on Saturday, October 23. The renovation of the President’s Living Room Patio afforded the Texas College campus an additional outdoor gathering space for all stakeholders of the College. This aesthetically pleasing update to the area now provides students, alumni, faculty, staff, and friends of the College a secluded outdoor space to host activities or events, as well as to casually gather for recreational purposes. Summarily, the President’s Living Room Patio renovation revitalized a barren space that has been previously dormant and unusable for the Texas College campus. Now, through these beautification and restoration efforts, the space boasts an array of seating, inclusive of multiple furniture sets on the brick - paved patio, as well as additional seating atop a newly constructed wooden deck, under a newly constructed pergola. To further enhance the patio’s ambiance, the addition of updated outdoor lighting, string lights, rugs, fire pits, shrubbery, flowers, and other associated items have been implemented. Further, to maximize comfort throughout all seasons, fans, heaters, and umbrellas are also available for each set of furniture. Moreover, the space readily accommodates guests with a serving bar and propane grill for applicable functions. Given the mobility of the aforementioned pieces, the space affords an adaptive area to comfortably host a range of activities and events, as well as informal gatherings. With outstanding support of the Tyler Home Depot’s Assistant Store Manager, Mr. Joe Leach, the completion of this project was coordinated by a committee comprised of Dr. Dwight Fennell, Mrs. Angelia Fennell, Mr. Jake Martin, Ms. Marie Payne, Mr. Anthony Parker, and Ms. Felicia Thomas.

13