I've worked with The Home Depot for a year or so now. It's a significant client relationship — one built on data, experimentation, and a genuine shared interest in improving the digital experience for millions of customers. But this trip to the US was different. This one was about something else entirely.
The Foundation's work with veterans
Before the build day, we spent time with the Home Depot Foundation learning about their work with the US veteran community. The numbers are significant: since 2011, the Foundation has invested over $650 million in veteran causes and improved more than 70,000 veteran homes and facilities. They've committed to reaching $750 million by 2030.
Hearing that context in person, from the people running the programmes, lands differently than reading it in a briefing. The scale of the commitment is real, and the focus on housing and stability for veterans and their families is exactly the kind of long-term thinking that tends to produce actual change.
The build site, San Gabriel Valley — a Habitat for Humanity partnership
The build day
A colleague and I volunteered alongside Home Depot associates and other vendors on a Foundation build in Altadena, in partnership with San Gabriel Valley Habitat for Humanity. The families we were building for had lost their homes in the California wildfires in 2025.
We framed a house and built kitchen cupboards, furniture and bikes for kids. The frame we built that day will be transported and erected on site for a family who lost everything.
It's easy to feel helpless watching the news from a distance. Being there for a day was a reminder that recovery isn't abstract. It's hammers, timber, and people giving up their time for someone they'll probably never meet. The families rebuilding from scratch deserve every bit of that energy.
I'm genuinely grateful to the Home Depot Foundation and Good Growth for making this possible, and for the chance to contribute something that goes beyond the work we do day to day.
An unexpected bonus
California delivered one more thing I wasn't expecting: bears. Real ones, in the wild, going about their business with an indifference to spectators that I found genuinely impressive. After a day of building and a week of meetings, standing quietly watching bears in their natural habitat was an unexpectedly good way to reset.
Some experiences remind you what the work is actually for. This trip was one of them.
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