Home Depot's volunteers renovate home for autistic men
A lot of care and hands-on work has gone into a Buffalo Grove house that five autistic men will soon call home.
The Home Depot helped renovate the two-story house at 1106 Cambridge Drive that will provide housing through the Clearbrook Center and the Hope Foundation for Autism and Epilepsy.
About 70 volunteers from Home Depot stores in Algonquin, Bartlett, Carpentersville, Crystal Lake, Elgin, Lake Zurich, McHenry, Mount Prospect, Palatine, Schaumburg, South Elgin, Vernon Hills and Volo spent two days in Buffalo Grove to put in a new kitchen and redo the basement.
The store also donated outside landscaping, and Wal-Mart donated a new TV.
"We really take pride," said Dori Von Bargen, a human resource manager at the Vernon Hills Home Depot. "It's neat to see everyone come together and work for a good cause."
The crews completely replaced the old kitchen with new cabinets, new appliances and new countertops.
"Several stores had their own project to do," said Heather Weingart, a regional manager at the Vernon Hills store. "Ours was the kitchen."
The volunteers also created a bedroom in the basement to complement the four bedrooms upstairs and replaced all the shelves in the closets.
"The whole purpose of this is to make this a home so they feel like they're walking into something personal," Von Bargen said.
This is Clearbrook's second home for autistic clients. The first is a women's home in Hoffman Estates.
Staff members are placed in the home at all times to assist the men living there.
"It's customized with the staff, who are trained to know about men with autism," said Christina Raddi, a spokeswoman for Arlington Heights-based Clearbrook.
After Home Depot and other volunteers clear out of the house this week, the men will slowly start moving in to get used to their surroundings.
Clearbrook will host an open house to show off the group home 1 to 4 p.m. on May 18.
"It's just a good feeling," Von Bargen said of working on the project. "It's as simple as that."