Adventist university will use funds to improve athletic fields
Oakwood University is one of three Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) that won a $25,000 Campus Pride Grant in The Home Depot's 2014 Retool Your School Campus Improvement Grant Program.
An Oakwood spokesman said the university will use the grant to re-seed the softball and soccer fields and install sprinkler systems.
According to the results of the program, which is sponsored by the nation’s largest home improvement retailer, Oakwood was selected because of a combination of social media participation and the voting score. The three applicants with the highest votes and most social media activity, as determined by the sponsor during the voting period, were awarded with the Campus Pride Grants.
In 2013, Oakwood won the Tier 1 grant of $50,000, for the construction of an outdoor pavilion.
"We thank everyone who voted, tweeted and posted images on Facebook that allowed us to win this grant," said George Johnson Jr., director of Oakwood’s integrated marketing & public relations. "Truly the network that Oakwood has developed helped us to win. We wouldn't have been able to do this alone with just the amount of people we have here on our campus," he said.
In addition to the three campus pride grants, Home Depot also awarded one $50,000 grant and 13 $10,000 grants in this year's competition, totaling $250,000 to HBCUs for campus and facility improvements.
