Welcome to Episode 3 of the Back to the Roots Podcast!
Alejandro headed to Atlanta, Georgia, for the Home Depot Kids Workshop — a free, hands-on event held every first Saturday of April at Home Depot stores across the country. This year, Back to the Roots partnered with Home Depot to put a free grow kit in the hands of every single child who walked through those doors. All 575,000 of them.
In this episode, Alejandro sits down with three people who made it happen and who remind us exactly why we do what we do.
🎧 In this episode, you'll hear:
This is what 10 years of work looks like. And honestly? We're just getting started.
🔗 CONNECT WITH HOME DEPOT:
The Home Depot: https://www.homedepot.com
The Home Depot on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/homedepot/
🔗 CONNECT WITH US:
Back to the Roots: https://backtotheroots.com
Alejandro's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alejandrovelezramirez
Nikhil's LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/aroranikhil
[00:00:00] Alejandro Vélez: Hey, everybody. My name is Alejandro. I'm the co-founder, co-CEO of Back to the Roots, and we're in Atlanta, Georgia, for another episode of the Back to the Roots podcast. But today is a really special one. This is the most special day of the year for me personally. This has been a t- 10-year vision of getting every kid to grow something.
No matter what they're growing, we want them to grow something from scratch. We want a million kids growing, and today is April 4th. I'm joined with Alex Holguin. Alex, tell us a little bit about yourself. Who do you work with, and, uh, what do you think of April 4th today? What are we doing?
[00:00:42] Alex Holguin: Absolutely. And Alex, thank you so much for having me here as well.
I'm Alex, and I support the MET team. And, uh, one of my biggest things is to make sure that we have great partnerships with our stores and our suppliers. And just coming here and seeing this come to life here has been a blessing for us, and it's a wonderful thing to see how we continue to evolve and innovate and making sure that we're including our communities in this, uh, program as well.
[00:01:02] Alejandro Vélez: How do you know, how did you meet me? How did you meet Back to the Roots? Why did you even invest time in this brand?
[00:01:07] Alex Holguin: Absolutely. Uh, we met Back to the Roots when they were first joining the, a Home Depot, and they were growing in different stores. And they were looking at, how do we continue to partnership with different parts of the programs that Home Depot has to offer?
And that's when Alex was introduced to myself from our vice presidents and our merchants. How did you get started with the Home Depot? I got started with The Home Depot 19 years ago, uh, in Miami as a sales associate, and now I've been with the company 19 years. Wow. Yeah.
[00:01:34] Alejandro Vélez: That's the beauty of The Home Depot, guys.
So they are, if you start with them- Mm-hmm ... and you can start pushing carts, and you can get up to extremely senior levels like Alex, 19 years at this organization. Yeah. One question. You see, you've worked yourself up this organization. You've now head all strategy for MET, and what does MET stand for specifically?
Can you tell our audience what that means?
[00:01:53] Alex Holguin: Absolutely. MET stands for the merchandising execution team, where we do execute all our programs and special projects across the stores, uh, all year round. Why Back to the Roots? Uh, the first thing that was very, uh, eye-opening for me is where they were founded from, where you started, uh, you and your co-founder.
And, uh, looking at things from an organic perspective, something that was very, a hot topic in those days. You were first to market to reach that, and that was very eye-opening to see.
[00:02:25] Alejandro Vélez: It was almost like- ... entrepreneur- ... they didn't really care about organics- It was like they care today, too. Yeah, and it was the start of it.
Yeah, it was a start. It was a start, and you can remember at one time- I remember a merchant, when I brought up organic, he was like, "What does that even mean?" Right. That's how long I've been around. As y'all know, we started this thing 16 years ago.
[00:02:39] Alex Holguin: Absolutely, and that was the first thing. And then the reason I cared about organics and your company specifically is that you had a specific goal of reaching people, especially our kids and our generation, where you wanted to teach them how to benefit from what you can do yourself.
You can grow yourself, and you can be independent. Why is the kids workshop important to The Home Depot? It's a great question. It brings our community together, most importantly, right? And we, we love to give back to our communities, and this is one way to give back is spend time with our kids here, show them everything that we have available for the parents and kids.
I think this is just a great moment for our families to spend time together in a, in an environment like this.
[00:03:18] Alejandro Vélez: It's attracting. Right now they're not... You have associates right now from The Home Depot, and they're not selling. They're out getting seeds for free by Back to the Roots. Why is that? I'd feel like a, a CFO of a big company like The Home Depot would say, "No, kill this from the P&L."
[00:03:32] Alex Holguin: Yeah. It's about driving community, partnership, uh, making sure that we're driving unity, especially with different parts of the, of the community. Uh- Why is Back to the Roots are now a fit for the kids workshop? Why is it, why is it a fit? Yeah. It's a fit because this is exactly what you wanna see kids doing.
You wanna see kids outside growing, planting, at Home Depot? Everyone. Yeah. Gardening is important for n- numerous reasons, not just psychologically, because that's important for us psychologically as well. Uh, but it's good to be outdoors. Yeah. Especially during the season. Yeah. You see everyone right now as we're going into peak season, planting flowers, planting seeds, getting soil out there, getting their hands dirty, family time, watering the plants. This is just the perfect time to do so.
[00:04:19] Alejandro Vélez: Everybody, I'm sitting with Taforey right now. Taforey, how do you know Alejandro? How do you know Back to the Roots?
[00:04:27] Taforey Anderson: Well, oddly enough, I ran the store that we're currently in going back six years ago, and that's when I officially met you for the first time. Um, was really interested in your product and the product line of Back to the Roots.
Um, my wife is an avid grower, um, and loves live goods as a whole.
[00:04:43] Alejandro Vélez: I wanna pause you because he's talking about a few years ago. We were, we were a startup, so he's one of the early guys. When he says that, that means something very different than if somebody said it just seeing the brand today- Yeah ... and the 10,000 plus stores that we're in.
[00:05:01] Taforey Anderson: He saw it early on, so. Right. Right. And not only did I see it, but I understood what it was that you were trying to do. And getting to meet you and then hearing your story and what you were doing with this product line made me even more excited. So it was already in the store, but it wasn't a big footprint, and my idea was to get it as big as a footprint that we could here in the store, 'cause I understood the vision that you had and how great of a product you had also. So that was extremely important to me.
[00:05:26] Alejandro Vélez: I think what's cool to mention, too, Tafoy was running this store, so it's a big job in and of itself. But on top of that, two things. One is our product wasn't listed as what you'd call in retail, so we were not supposed to be in the store, but it's the entrepreneurial energy.
First, that the HomeDepot incubates that, number one. But two is that Taforey just picks up the phone and says, "Hey, I want your product. I saw it in the market or something. I wanna get it in my store." I was like, "Well, I don't know if I could do that." He's like, "Well, no, pull it off. Ship to my store. I'll make it happen."
And then- Five days later, he's got a big display of our mushroom kit was our first product. Right. Yeah. You've also called me out of the blue more than once over the years, it's like, "Uh, Alex, I've got this entrepreneur who's trying to start their business like you." And he talked to him. Yeah, absolutely.
Why do you do that? 'Cause it's not just me, it's not Back to Roots. What is it about you that focuses on new ideas? Well, why do you wanna help entrepreneurs?
[00:06:23] Taforey Anderson: Two things. One, Home Depot has always kind of put the idea of entrepreneurs first, right? Like, we, we build brands. That's what we've been known for.
And if you have a leader that believes in the core values that we believe in, giving back to the community, you're here on a Saturday at our Kids' Club Workshop, giving back to the community. So it's one of those staples within our core values that aligns us, which allows for me to now come alongside and get behind someone.
So that's always been important to me personally. That's the reason why I've chose to build a career with this company, is because the values line up with my personal values. And when I have entrepreneurs like yourself that live those values, it's easy to get behind the product and the brand, especially when the product is a phenomenal product like Back to Roots.
[00:07:11] Alejandro Vélez: Well, it's a two-way street because listen, I was a kid, as you guys know, Nick Hill and I started this company, we were 20-year-olds. He had... knew nothing. Yeah. And you are the people that you surround yourself with. We talk about that in past podcast episodes. Select wisely, and for us in retail, which retailers you anchor with, you spend most of your time with, is how you end up showing up to your own team.
So the culture that y'all have created has rubbed off in our culture. Yeah. So that's a huge deal, too. Why is a Kids' Workshop important? So now you run... How many stores do you run now?
[00:07:48] Taforey Anderson: So, currently, I have nine stores here in Metro Atlanta. Um, roughly about 2,600 plus associates. Um, huge, huge opportunity for us to continue to build our brand as an organization.
Um, Kids' Workshop obviously is important. These, these are our future customers. These are- Yeah ... our future customers. Um, and in more ways, not only are there future customers, but a lot of them will end up working for us as well. I'll tell you a quick story. I was in our Cascade store, and I happened to bump into one of our pro contractors, and he's in the store physically there with his son, and his father had recently passed.
And he pulled me aside, and he remembered his father first time ever taking him to Home Depot. And he told me that story, and he's now physically in the s- in the store with his son- Wow ... shopping and, and building a, a, his own, um, career with Home Depot as a partner. So for me, that's what we're about as an organization.
That's what we built our brands off of. Um, so it's, again, one of those things that resonates a- alive and well, um, even today. Um, and why I'm here is- 20 years of success has been more about the people and the relationships that I built- Mm ... than more about me. Um, and Home Depot has afforded me that ability to get to know folks like you, build great relationships where I can pick up the phone and call you- Right
and go, "Hey, I have this person that's starting something. I don't know the intricacies of what this looks like. Can you help them out?" And you go, "Absolutely," and give me two, three hours of your time. Um, so those, those are the things that make me excited about being a part of this.
[00:09:29] Alejandro Vélez: I can't... You got our executive chair, uh, Bill Levy, says our executive chair is over here, but, uh, he was a mentor to us when we were getting started.
I met him over a decade ago. It's the people around you, the mentors around you. So entrepreneurs can say, "I'm the same way. I gotta pay back," because it becomes a cycle. Yes. Part of it, uh, with kids here, I say, "We donate a kit, but you gotta give, you gotta gi- you gotta choose a school to donate." Right. Right.
So we give the ownership to the kid themselves. We all have a part. If we get help, we gotta help. Sure. We gotta help others. So what still makes you wake up every morning and be proud to bleed orange, DuWayne?
[00:10:08] Taforey Anderson: Uh, there's so many different things, um, that probably still fuels that, but I would tell you the most important, the number one thing, is being able to take care of our associates, um, give them the autonomy to take care of our customers.
Um, this company has done so much for me and my family and has allowed for me to be a part of building other careers. Um, currently now, Roscille was just here, and she was an ASM for me here in this store, and I promoted her just a month ago. Those are the moments that I'm most proud of, and allows for me to get excited every single day knowing what that can look like, those life-changing events for so many folks.
[00:10:49] Alejandro Vélez: Talk about connecting between kids workshops to being a leader at The Home Depot, a five-year-old to a 40-year-old being a leader at a Home Depot or being a consumer. It is beautiful, and you can't quantify that. Kids' workshops can't be quantified. Right. But it also can't be replicated easily. Like, there's a reason why Home Depot is the only major retailer in the world that can get 800,000 tour.
We're gonna... Today, right now, right this moment, there's 500,000 kids- Wow ... that are starting a garden with Back to the Roots and the kids workshop. So- That is awesome ... it's super cool. Fantastic.
Salima, how are you? Good. That's so cool. What did you paint? What is that? Angel. That's an angel? And who's angel? She's from Stitch. What did you put in here? Seed. For what? So it could grow. Oh, thank you. Okay, we're gonna take one home. Okay, so you put a seed in here, and how... What happens?
[00:11:50] Salima: It's gonna grow.
[00:11:51] Alejandro Vélez: It's gonna grow? That's like magic. That's... It ain't gonna grow It is? It's gonna grow from a little seed? How do you- If you put water on it. Ah, you gotta put water in it. What else do you have to put on it? Water. And? And sun. So water and sun, and then you end up growing something? Have you ever grown anything before? Yeah. What do you like to grow?
[00:12:18] Salima: I like to grow plants. I like to grow plants, and I, and I plant it in first grade.
[00:12:24] Alejandro Vélez: You did it first grade? Aw, I love it. Well, this is so special. Let's get a quick picture. Salima's a star.