PINE BLUFF, Ark. - The University of Arkansas at Pine Bluff was one of nine Historically Black Colleges and Universities awarded money from Home Depot's Retool Your School campus improvement grant program; a total of $40,000 was awarded to the HBCU for renovation projects, and UAPB faculty, staff, students, combined with members of the community and several Home Depot employees volunteered to help with a beautification project for the Torii Hunter Baseball and Softball Complex in Pine Bluff.

"I had a great time today at UAPB giving back," said Home Depot West Little Rock store manager Michael Rutledge. "I love what I do and I love the company I do it with."

Also among the volunteers was UAPB Academic Counselor/Special Events Coordinator Ka'Lisa Stanfield.

"We all worked on the Retool Your School beautification project for the softball field," said Stanfield. "This is going to increase the atmosphere for not only our players but our fans as well. We want to thank our students for putting in all those long hours and hard work on social media in order for us to win this grant. We can't wait to see our students come back for the new school year and we hope they join us at the newly renovated softball field for the upcoming season."

During phase one, the volunteers built foundations and placed picnic tables near the complex, put white stones over dirt patches to build a walkway to the complex, placed shrubbery and benches near the complex and painted the dugouts. Phase two, which is a drastic improvement to the press box, will come at a later date.

Home Depot senior marketing manager Melissa Brown said the company began the HBCU program nine years ago to support the schools in projects that are sustainable and can be done without budget. The annual program is considered one of the largest annual philanthropic efforts for HBCU's.

"We are very excited because we received a $40k grant from Home Depot to beautify our softball field, and we are very proud of our students, faculty, staff and our alumni who came out to help support us in this project; even the Home Depot crew, you can't say enough about everyone that helped out," said UAPB Facilities Director Roger Totten. "We are a team and the team showed up, and that's what UAPB is all about."