Hansen House floored by donation

SEBRING For the past 20 years, it hasnt been anymore distinctive or inviting than the floor of a warehouse or a hospital.

The faded, gray carpet is spotted with a variety of stain spots, the vinyl-tiled floor scarred by scratches and shoe marks.

But by today, home should be a lot more homier for the six girls who live at the Hansen House, 4300 Sparta Road, an emergency shelter and residential program for abused and abandoned teenage girls ages 13 to 17 years old.

Through a corporate partnership, the Hansen House is getting a new, 900- to 1,000-square-foot high-end laminate floor installed to make the home safer, cleaner and more accommodating as its 20th anniversary approaches.

Lowes Home Improvement Sebring selected the Childrens Home Society of Floridas Hansen House as its 2014 local Lowes Heroes project community improvement projects the store has funded since 1957. Each year, Lowes employees team up to provide support to local communities as part of the Lowes Heroes employee volunteer program. The company-wide program encourages employees in a location to work together, adopt a volunteer project with a local nonprofit organization or K-12 public school, and make a difference, according to its website.

Shannon Littlefield, assistant store manager at Lowes Sebring, 2050 North U.S. 27, said 12 store employees and two flooring staff along with store manager Ron Staack would begin at 9 a.m. today and Sunday ripping and taking out the old carpet and replacing it with the laminate flooring. Measurements for the new floor were taken the week of Aug. 18 and the new floor will be installed in the dining room, living room, hallway to bedrooms and into a back living area.

Our employees like doing things like this. They like getting out in the community and helping out on activities like this, said Littlefield, who said the retail value of the flooring is about $1,900.

As she pointed out rips and stains around the carpet and current flooring, Carmen Barone, Hansen House resident supervisor, said the carpet is in highly-trafficked areas in a house full of girls, so the wear gets worse and worse. In her eighth year at the home, she said the rug was replaced once about seven years ago and its the first time the tiled floor has ever been replaced.

We focus a lot on normalcy. The kids walk back and forth, food and stuff falls and now it will be easier to maintain, she said. Its dirty and depressing now and you can see where a lot of stuff has fallen; we spend a lot of money trying to keep that carpet clean.

Amanda Clemens Hidalgo is communications and marketing specialist for the Childrens Home Society of Florida, a child-advocacy organization founded in 1907 that fosters children, strengthens families and assist teens struggling to survive on their own. She said its important for residents at Hansen House to feel like they are at home and new flooring can go a long way toward giving them that feeling.

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Hansen House floored by donation