Volunteers donated and installed 2,600 square feet of flooring at the domestic violence shelter. (Courtesy of Jim Schumacher)
A volunteer vacuums the floor in the shelter.
Homes that house women and children seeking shelter from an abusive family member should be warm and welcoming. Part of that mood depends on the floor. Tile is cold; carpet is soft but holds onto smells and stains. So when 3M employee Jim Schumacher was approached to redo the floors at a shelter in his territory, he set off to recruit a volunteer team of his clients who could donate, install, sand and finish wood floors.
The shelter had 15 rooms to do with a total square footage around 2,600. The companies that volunteered material and/or labor included KO Floors, Real Antique Wood Floors, ATC Hardwood Floors, Dave Snyder Hardwood Floors, Olson Floors, Woodlawn Floors, Newark Floor Supplies, Sika Corporation, Fortiber, Absolute Coatings and 3M.
The shelter’s carpet was ripped up and replaced with Brazilian oak, Brazilian cherry, teak, bamboo, santos mahogany, red oak, hickory, maple and cork.
Schumacher says he gets a “warm, fuzzy feeling” thinking about the project and how his clients came together to give the shelter and those who live there a new floor. “These people are coming from a bad situation and are walking in and they’re in a nice warm and inviting area,” he says.
The owners of Real Antique Wood Floors, Gary and Lisa Horvath, also contributed two handmade dinner tables that are 7 feet long. They were made from reclaimed wood, and the home’s staff thought that was a wonderful metaphor, Schumacher says—something from a dilapidated place, now in a different environment, changed for the better.
