CARY, N.C. — Cornerstone Building Brands announced a donation of building products valued at $500,000 to Habitat for Humanity’s nationwide Disaster Risk Reduction and Response program, as well as a $100,000 financial contribution to the Coweta Community Foundation. These donations, presented on June 26 at the Where I Come From: Tornado Benefit, will support disaster relief and recovery efforts in Newnan, Ga., following the devastation of the March 2021 tornado.
Cornerstone Building Brands is no stranger to Newnan or its hometown hero, country music superstar Alan Jackson. Almost 1,800 of the company’s 20,000 employees work in six manufacturing plants near Newnan, and Jackson was the founding ambassador of Cornerstone Building Brands’ Home for Good project, which works to help alleviate the shortage of affordable housing in partnership with Habitat for Humanity International. Contributing locally produced building materials and financial resources to support Jackson’s efforts to aid the community’s recovery was an easy decision for the company to make.
“I appreciate Cornerstone Building Brands’ help to repair and rebuild my hometown after the tornado,” Jackson said. “There’s a lot of people that lost everything, and this’ll help ’em get a new start.”
The building materials Cornerstone Building Brands provides to Habitat for Humanity will contribute to the nonprofit housing organization’s efforts to repair damaged homes and to rebuild affordable, resilient housing in the Newnan community and other areas impacted by natural disasters. The donation will include fortified products, such as impact windows and performance siding, that are more resistant to natural disasters. The monetary donation to Coweta Community Foundation will help drive a range of recovery efforts including insurance deductible relief, temporary shelter and storage, rebuilding and restoration.
“We’re excited to work with Alan Jackson, our first Home for Good project ambassador, to respond to the need to rebuild housing in his hometown of Newnan,” said James S. Metcalf, chairman and chief executive officer of Cornerstone Building Brands. “At Cornerstone Building Brands, our purpose is to positively contribute to the communities where we live, work and play. This community is an important part of Cornerstone Building Brands and our broader work toward affordable and resilient housing across the U.S.”
Through this donation, Cornerstone Building Brands is continuing its commitment to affordable housing as part of its Home for Good project through 2022. Since the inception of the Home for Good project in 2016, the company has donated more than $2.5 million in exterior building products to rebuild or remodel more than 550 Habitat homes in more than 90 communities. In addition, hundreds of Cornerstone Building Brands employees have volunteered on Habitat home builds in more than 30 cities.
“We’re thankful for Cornerstone Building Brands’ support of our disaster response efforts with their generous product donation,” said Colleen Finn Ridenhour, chief development officer at Habitat for Humanity International. “Their continued partnership will help more individuals have access to safe, reliable shelter.”
