Habitat gets plywood windfall from Georgia-Pacific

Larrie Del Martin was about as happy as anyone could be to see a truckload of used plywood.

“Look at that,” said Martin, executive director of Atlanta Habitat for Humanity. “It’s a huge donation.”

Georgia-Pacific donated about 1,250 sheets of plywood used at the Georgia-Pacific Building in downtown Atlanta as flooring for scaffolding after the March 14 tornado. The bulk of the shipment arrived Wednesday afternoon at Atlanta Habitat’s warehouse near Oakland Cemetery.

Atlanta Habitat said the 1/2-inch and 3/4-inch boards will provide subflooring and roof sheathing for about 20 homes. That’s about a third of Atlanta Habitat’s home building plans for its current fiscal year.

Melanie Platt, board chairwoman for Atlanta Habitat, said an in-kind donation of that size “is very unusual.” It is quite a coup for the families who will take ownership of those homes. The families pay back an interest-free loan to Habitat for the homes that includes the cost of the materials.

Atlanta Habitat would otherwise have bought the plywood, Martin said, resulting in costs of “several thousands of dollars.”

Further, Martin said, “It’s going to save it from going to the landfill. It’s a win-win.”

Dennis Forrest, facilities manager at Georgia-Pacific who oversaw the replacement of the dozens of broken windows at the Georgia-Pacific Building, said it “was pretty simple” to decide what to do with the plywood after the repairs were completed in July.

“I didn’t want to get into giving it to employees,” Forrest said.

Rather than trying to divvy up the hundreds of sheets, it made sense to give it to a charity that Georgia Pacific has worked with in the past.