Dozens of associate volunteers at Lowe’s distribution centers in Statesville, North Carolina and Mount Vernon, Texas stuffed 20,000 buckets with storm relief supplies recently during the company’s fifth annual bucket brigade.
Last year, Lowe’s associates passed out 15,000 buckets at store relief events in more than a dozen states. Having 20,000 more buckets staged and ready to go this year means Lowe’s can offer help as soon as a storm hits.
The annual bucket brigade event is part of a two-phase approach to storm relief:
- Packing the buckets with essential disaster relief supplies
- Shipping the supplies to communities impacted by disasters and aiding in their recovery
“We sell product, but the reality is we are here to serve the community,” said Robbie Tigert, a senior operations manager in Mount Vernon. “This event shows our commitment to our ultimate goal.”
Lowe’s buckets are filled with supplies and distributed to communities in need over the course of the next year. For areas recovering from hurricanes, tornadoes, wildfires, severe storms and the like, these Lowe’s buckets will be there.
Relief supplies include sanitizer, scrub brushes, bleach, work gloves, water and other essentials. Each center assembled 10,000 buckets this summer. That enables a quick response from the Lowe’s command center in an emergency situation to ship supplies to local stores. The buckets are distributed for free to residents affected by storms.
“This is just a part of Lowe’s core values,” said Shawn Kilby, a senior operations manager at the Statesville regional distribution center. “Having these buckets available nationwide is important to us. We just want to be where help is needed.”
