Thank you Timberland for Keeping our Feet Safe!

Dear Timberland,

After your generous shipment of boots arrived last Friday, many of our staff breathed a sigh of relief. Working at a non-profit home repair organization, RTNO team members put their shoes to the test every day—stepping on nails, carrying heavy supplies, and avoiding falling debris. Over time, footwear breaks down from all the hard work. At least one member of our team has worn out his tennis shoes to the point of needing to duct-tape them back together again. Then, just as we were beginning to wonder about the safety of our team, 6 enormous boxes of Timberland boots showed up at our door and we knew our team’s toes would be safe again for another year.

Though the holiday season is still a few months away, Christmas came early for our hard working field staff and AmeriCorps members on Monday and we handed out 43 boxes of Timberland steel-toe hiker boots. This highly-anticipated footwear is now on the ground here in New Orleans and hard at work helping to rebuild and repair homes for low-income, elderly and disabled homeowners in our city. Of the 43 pairs, many of boots went to House Captains. These are the AmeriCorps service members who work each week leading volunteers in home repair projects. In an average week, House Captains might be framing houses, crawling through attics installing insulation, laying flooring, tiling a bathroom shower, or performing the many tasks necessary to turn our work sites back into warm and safe homes.

These boots will also come in handy for our Deconstruction and Salvage staff and AmeriCorps service members. This team works in blighted homes filled with rusty nails, salvaging historic building materials and deconstructing buildings to reuse the valuable lumber that would otherwise end up in our ever growing landfills. More pairs are keeping our construction managers safe as they inspect homes prospective projects, walk through gutted houses planning out kitchen cabinet lay outs, or manage the construction progress for one of our 33 open projects.

Other boots have been given to our handymen and women who lead our framing, trim and weatherization crews, and ensure that our homeowners have safe and energy-efficient homes. Without our warehouse operations keeping all of projects stocked with bamboo flooring, tile, weatherization materials, tools and lumber we would be at a stand still; other pairs of your boots are making sure that the women who manage our warehouse are safe on and off the forklift or the ladder.

In a lot of ways, RTNO staff and AmeriCorps members are a lucky bunch: we get to spend our days making a positive difference in the city we love. We have the drive and determination to get the job done no matter what, and we would still do the work with the duct-taped shoes. But without a doubt, a new pair of Timberland steel-toe boots will make our jobs easier and safer. From our team to yours, thank you for this fantastic and much appreciated gift!