Community Corner

Home Depot Gives YARN Foundation $11,000

The donation will be used to buy materials for the foundation's facility at 71 Boulder Hill Pass. Home Depot employees will also help renovate the building.

With a little luck, and a lot of sweat, the YARN Foundation’s facility at 71 Boulder Hill Pass will open later this summer. It will contain a computer lab, classroom areas, and a community center, and will offer free after-school programs, GED courses and services like pregnancy counseling for those who cannot afford them.

It’s the vision of John and Deborah Anthony of Plainfield, and they’ve been working on it for years. And now, thanks to a generous donation from the Oswego Home Depot store, that vision is much closer to becoming a reality.

The Anthonys announced this week that Home Depot has granted $11,100 in gift cards to the YARN Foundation, to pay for materials needed to renovate their facility. Foundation volunteers have already started buying plumbing materials and wooden studs to help with construction.

Find out what's happening in Montgomerywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Chuck Chruszczyk, manager of the Oswego Home Depot, said the Anthonys sought him out, looking for help. The company has a program called Team Depot, through which they give grants to community organizations. And with corporate approval, they gave the YARN Foundation everything they asked for.

“There’s no set dollar amount,” Chruszczyk said of the program. “We do what we can to give back.”

Find out what's happening in Montgomerywith free, real-time updates from Patch.

And, at some point in the next week or two, employees from both the Oswego and West Aurora Home Depot stores will arrive in person at the Boulder Hill location, next to , and help with the renovations.

Chruszczyk said the Oswego Home Depot gives out between two and eight of these grants each year, as does every other Home Depot store.

This is just the latest donation to the Foundation, which has seen great support in the Kendall County community. Their first fundraiser, dubbed , was held at the end of March, and brought in $14,000. The owner of their Boulder Hill facility, Henry Funk, has donated the first year’s rent for free.

Butterball has donated $10,000 in furniture, and ServPro of Kendall County will provide $5,000 of construction services for free as well.

And most recently, NetComm Business Solutions in Yorkville they would donate consulting fees for the first two hours for new customers to the cause. Essentially, each new customer will pay for a computer for the Foundation’s lab. The Anthonys hope to outfit their facility with 25 networked computers.

YARN stands for Youth and Restoring Nations, and the non-profit's goal will be to improve the lives of as many young people as possible. For more information, check out their website.


Get more local news delivered straight to your inbox. Sign up for free Patch newsletters and alerts.

We’ve removed the ability to reply as we work to make improvements. Learn more here