Shaw, St. Jude open doors to Chattanooga Dream Home

HomeInside FCNewsShaw, St. Jude open doors to Chattanooga Dream Home

by Louis Iannaco

Chattanooga, Tenn.—After announcing a national partnership earlier this year with the St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway, a fundraising campaign that has raised more than $220 million in over 20 years for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital—currently celebrating its 50th anniversary—Shaw Industries, the program’s exclusive flooring sponsor, set out to donate flooring to approximately 30 new homes across the country, with the most recent taking place here earlier this month as company officials, several invited flooring dealers as well as local and national media gathered for a house tour.

The homes, all built and promoted utilizing donated time and resources by builders, installers, subcontractors and vendors throughout the U.S., are all part of a contest in which consumers can purchase $100 tickets for a chance to win their local Dream Home, knowing all proceeds go to helping St. Jude. As a national sponsor, Shaw is helping the St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway raise more than $24 million this year for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital.

The home in Chattanooga is one of the first 14 that will be given away in June with the rest scheduled to be given away in the second half of the year. Shaw signed on to become the second national sponsor, joining Brizo, a luxury brand of faucets, in raising funds for children’s cancer research and other deadly diseases.

“The best way to show our product is in a home,” said Kathy Young, Shaw’s marketing director, “and when you can associate that home to a cost marketing effort, then you get a dual benefit.

“To get involved and to get to know St. Jude,” she added, “you can’t help but fall in love with the organization regarding the way it goes about media exposure and the way it goes about helping families their entire lives. Once you are a patient at St. Jude you are part of the family.”

This was the first year Shaw participated as a national sponsor, according to Randy Merritt, president. “We saw so much in common in terms of what our vision is at Shaw about building better futures for our company, customers, associates and their families, and that is what St. Jude has been doing since it began in 1962, trying to build better futures for these children who have these awful diseases.

“So, there is a lot of synergy between what we’re trying to do and what they are trying to do,” he explained, “and I’m glad we can do it together in a small way through this Dream Home Giveaway program.”

According to Karen White, senior vice president, ALSAC corporate alliances, St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, over the past 50 years, the hospital has helped increase U.S. childhood cancer survival rates from 20% to 80%. “We couldn’t do that work without the support of partners like Shaw. It costs $1.7 million a day to operate St. Jude, and 75% of all operating costs are covered by public donations, very different than the way most hospitals operate.

“So, we rely on people’s generosity to find cures for these children, which is our mission,” she explained, “and Dream Home is one of the largest single fundraising programs we have that goes to our mission.” On average, 7,800 active patients visit St. Jude each year, most of whom are treated on an outpatient basis.

“You find the best partners when you share core values with them,” White said. “Shaw is about making lives better. St. Jude is about making many of life’s moments possible. So many of life’s moments happen in your home. The fact that Shaw is part of the home just makes for an undeniable partnership.”

The Chattanooga home, estimated to be worth $300,000, features Shaw’s Allouette III and Family Tree carpet styles, hardwood flooring from its Epic collection as well as area rugs. According to David Wilkerson, the mill’s corporate director of sustainability and product stewardship, the Dream Home designers definitely chose styles with a strong sustainability story. “For example, the hardwood flooring is cradle-to-cradle silver certified by McDonough Braungart Design Chemistry (MBDC) and uses our EnviroCore inner layer, which is made of 100% post-industrial recycled wood fibers.

“The carpet and rugs were made from Shaw’s internally produced Anso nylon 6 fiber,” he added, “which is fully recyclable at our Evergreen Nylon Recy-cling plant in Augusta, Ga. This fiber also contains 25% post-consumer recycled content (third party certified by SCS) and the finished products are cradle-to-cradle silver certified by MBDC.”

One of the other benefits of the Dream Home Giveaway goes to Shaw dealers who are able to market products used in the homes. “Shaw pays attention to its people,” said Ken Smith, general manager, American Carpet Wholesalers, a large Shaw vendor in Dalton. “When it sees opportunities for growth, it tries to help you grow, and our business has grown with Shaw.

“With St. Jude, Shaw has committed a full load to this,” Smith said. “It’s a national organization known throughout the nation. Every Shaw dealer will benefit if they understand what is going on here. When Shaw gets them out here [and to other homes like this], they’ll really get it.”

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