After 80+ years the gym floor in Laramie’s Big Brothers Big Sisters (BBBS) location was worn and tired. The floor had been neglected for decades and badly in need of some restorative work. Steve Hamaker, CEO of BBBS explained the predicament with the floor:
“The gym is a focal point of a lot of what we do. Daily we have children in the building that use the room for so many things. They play games, they exercise, they give poetry readings, they jam with their instruments, they use the climbing wall, they play dodge ball, they do arts and crafts, they do a little bit of everything. It definitely is a gathering place for everything we do. The room is also utilized by the community for different events such as graduation, birthday parties, networking, etc. It truly is a community space.”
Centennial Woods, based in Laramie, heard of the need for a floor refinish at BBBS and offered their services and materials. Within a week of starting the project, the floor was sanded, leveled, and repaired where needed – a new logo was even added to the floor. With a number of events on the horizon scheduled at the gym, Centennial Woods decided to use their products and machinery from one of their subdivisions to finish the floor in one day using UV light hardened coatings. The coatings used have very low VOCs and don’t require any special ventilation meaning the floor was ready to use within hours.
Once the project was completed and a story was written about it in the local paper, Hamaker said that a 92-year-old man who attended school in the building back in the ‘30s “…started crying when he saw how beautiful the floor looked and how impressed he was that we were able to keep this old school going and having it go to such a good cause. He wanted us to say: ‘thank you.’”
