Over the past two months, approximately 400 CarMax Home Office associates have dedicated time and energy toward a beautiful Habitat for Humanity community off of Richmond’s Walmsley Boulevard.  The 19-day team-builder wrapped up on July 24th.

Multiple departments from CarMax came together to assist in completing three homes and aiding in the building of other homes and storage sheds in the neighborhood, which will house 20 adults and 36 children.  The teams’ progress could be seen at the end of each day in the 17-home area. 

Rob Kelley of the CarMax Store Operations and Training team volunteered on one of the first (and hottest) days of the team-builder.  He said, “We started with a pile of wood in the ungraded back yard of a house.”  When his group left for the day, they had leveled the uneven concrete-like soil, cut all of the raw wood to the correct length, built the shed floor, built each wall structure, and raised each of the four walls to the shed. This great sense of accomplishment was felt each day by Rob’s fellow associates in their various projects. 

Over 19 days of work, CarMax volunteers managed to organize, build, cut, frame, prime, paint, dig, caulk, hammer, assembled, and so much more.  In addition to the satisfying feeling of seeing the houses come together, many of the volunteers had the chance to interact with the future home owners.  “Spending a part of my day with people who were going to move into the neighborhood made the Habitat experience that much more rewarding and meaningful,” said Kate Herbert of the CarMax New-Store Marketing group. 

Paige Ross, who works in the CarMax Customer Relations department, plans to take another visit to the neighborhood in a few years.  She speaks for so many of the CarMax volunteers when she says, “I can’t wait to see the families enjoy the beautiful homes they worked to receive.”

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