Today we’d like to introduce you to Steven Esparza.
Alright, thank you for sharing your story and insight with our readers. To kick things off, can you tell us how you got started?
I have been with Home Depot for almost 29 years, and we spend a lot of our time being out in our communities, giving back. One of my stores was working at a Veteran house, and I wanted to stop by and thank them all for their hard work. The Veteran whose house we were working on lost his leg in the military while at war. He explained to me the struggles he had been having since returning home from the war. Suddenly, his wife jumps up and starts crying about how we have let her husband down because he can’t hold a job due to his leg injury. He has good and bad days where he can even get out of bed and walk. His leg hurts so bad. He told me he wants to be a part of something again and wants a reason to wake up every morning. I hugged them both, and when I got into my truck, I just broke down and cried. I remember thinking, how do we abandon someone willing to make the ultimate sacrifice for our country and our freedom? Right then and there, I knew I had to do something. I had spent a lot of time with an Alderman trying to figure out how to keep his residents in his ward, where many were living each year. As we drove around his ward, he showed me all the vacant lots and the abandoned homes. I also learned that homeless veterans were growing up with nowhere to go. I told Chris that I had the solution. We will remodel these homes and put our Veterans into them. Our goal would be to save these communities while helping our Veterans get back into their day-to-day lives. In 2016 Vision Warriors Foundation was started, and we bought our first home in Chris’s Ward. With no money, my friends and family started working at the house every weekend. Slowly money started coming in, and I was able to get companies to donate materials and labor with the promise we would use them and pay them for our future houses. We completed the home in 2020 and are now finishing the 2nd home we built on a vacant lot one house down from our first.
The most amazing part of our story is the turnaround of this neighborhood. After many weekends of cleaning up trash, cutting down trees, and pulling weeds for our house and neighbors, we are starting to see the block turn around. In the beginning, I was told there was no way I could turn this block around or eliminate the crime happening every day there. Today you see kids playing outside, neighbors waving to us as we are working, and a community that is now taking pride in their block again.
We all face challenges, but looking back, would you describe it as a relatively smooth road?
Our first struggle was getting the community to buy into us being there. We had to show them that we were there to help make a positive change. It was a tough 2-3 years, but we did it. Our second struggle was money. Every company I met with loved my idea and wanted to see the city get turned around while helping our Veterans, but I didn’t think it could be done. They told me to return to them when we completed our first home.
Appreciate you sharing that. What else should we know about what you do?
I have worked for Home Depot for 29 years, 12 years in California, and 17 years here in St Louis. I have been a District Manager for 15 years, managing 10 stores, one in the city and the other 9 in Illinois. The most rewarding part of my job is growing our associates’ careers. I started out pushing carts while I was playing college basketball. The next thing I knew, I was full-time, and the leaders there had me so pumped up about the company’s future that I decided this would be my career. Today I can do the same thing with all our associates, and since I have done almost every job in the store, I can help them learn and grow into their positions. Just this week, one of my managers got a great job in our Atlanta office, which is hard to get, but when he called me and thanked me, I was so happy to know I could help make that happen. I think community service and giving back are what set me apart. Our values founded our company, and I have lived them daily, at work and at home. When you work for a company that wants you out in the community as much as possible, showing our customers that we care more about their communities than their money, Vision Warriors would have never been started if I didn’t live these values.
Contact Info:
- Website: visionwarriorsfoundation.org
- Facebook: @4ourvets
