Photo Submitted
Front from left: Shelly Eddington, Larry Preston, Mike Keown, Aaron York, Deb Conlin; (second row) Mike Grose, Charlie Bragg, Chuy Gandarilla, Paula Stone, Kevin Weuve; (back row) Don Butler, Mark Conlin and Jerry Krebs.

Home Depot Grant Helps

•October 14, 2015•

By Mike Brothers

Sullivan American Legion Post 68 is a brighter place after this week.

With funding from a $9500 Home Depot Foundation grant and a lot of volunteer hours the Legion has all new T-8 Energy Star lighting, a new ceiling and new carpeting in the lounge.

It didn’t come easy as Mike Keown explained.

About a year ago a member noticed the Home Depot grant program information in the American Legion magazine.

“This building is 20 years old, and we were hoping the grant would help us get a new HVAC system,” Keown began, noting he contacted the Mattoon Home Depot store in November 2014.

Shelly Eddington is the Home Depot volunteer coordinator at Mattoon and helped get the process started.

“This was our first grant application for the veterans program,” she began, explaining the HVAC request was beyond the scope of the operation.

However, she and Keown started exploring what was available: replacing carpet that was a safety hazard in the lounge area, new energy efficient lighting and the suspended ceiling all qualified.

That’s when the American Legion board started concentrating on completing the 10 page application.     Login or Subscribe to read the rest of this story.