I’ve never been a fan of Home Depot.  My typical experience involves trying to locate an employee for assistance, only to find an apathetic teenager who doesn’t know a coupling from a chicken coop. I do my best to avoid Big Orange in favor for my local mom-and-pop hardware store.

Despite my disdain for Home Depot, I have to tip my hat to Big Orange. The chain recently agreed to provide a new roof for the Custer Institute in Southold, New York. The Long Island astronomy center hosts several outreach programs there. Donna McCormick, Custer’s president, recently sent an e-mail describing the ordeal:

We operate on a shoestring and have no endowment so we were unable to fund the repair ourselves. We've been trying to raise the money through donations or grants for several years but didn't have any luck. Then, this past spring, a windstorm blew off a batch of shingles and within days a dinner plate-sized hole appeared that went through the roof to the ceiling of the lecture hall below …

[Home Depot] will arrive on the morning of August 5, remove the old roof, replace whatever damaged wood they find in the underlayer, put on a new layer of shingles and, if there’s still time, install the gutters. They’ll even cart away the debris.

Thanks to its generosity, I’ll go to Home Depot next time I need a box of 100 zinc-plated washers.