Home Depot ‘Retool Your School’ Voting Less Than Stellar
Home Depot has introduced a national ‘Retool Your School’ contest for HBCUs to rally support for campus improvement project. Voting for the contest ends on May 15.
And voting returns so far? As of this posting, let’s just say HBCU students and alumni are less than engaged. Far less.
How embarrassing is it that an international HBCU community of students, alumni and faculty can only manage three schools to attract more than 10,000 votes? We’re not talking about a fundraising campaign – many of us would expect this kind of apathy and disinterest if it required people to come out of pocket.
But to cast a vote online? For schools to have less than 50,000 votes apiece is absolutely sickening.
If every student voted from every school, the numbers would increase exponentially. If every alumnus with Internet access at home or work voted, that number skyrockets. The majority of the blame falls on schools who haven’t necessarily trumpeted their participation, but also for constituents who haven’t helped to spread the word.
Well, consider the word spread. Now let’s act like we halfway care about our institutions.
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African Americans who are able to go to college, only value white institutions. They view anything founded or ran by black people to be inferior, thats what happens to an ethnic group when they are assimilate. The thing is, HBCUs still have a lot to give, because of the massive numbers of African, European and Hispanic American who dont have degrees. HBCUs are just underutilized resources, and then the education in HBCUs and PWI dont deal with or address the unique needs and condition of black people but thats an entire other story
Unfortunately, I did not know about this contest. Was it regional If I had known, I would have been able to rally he campus and friends to participate. How was this promoted? This is the first article I have seen referring to this initiative. I am sorry that the schools I am associated with did not rank in this competition.
JC,
If the score represents the actually total of voters to each institution, you are right its sad but yet no surprise. Honestly, I am amazed this many folks voted. We as a people are so disengaged from our HBCU’s it’s truely sad. We are under funded by state government, we lack support from local business sponsorships, and alumni donations trickle in much like a morphine drip to a dying man. If we as a people as the very least cant sit at a computer and click a button to get free money from a corporation, (be it large or small) we deserve what we get, including a fate similar to that of Morris Brown College.