Sunrise Children’s Services Woodlawn Center received a hero’s helping hand all this week from about 50 area Lowe’s volunteers.

Once a year, Lowe’s chooses a nonprofit agency to help make an instant change and improve its facility. This year, Sunrise’s Woodlawn Center was chosen because the residential treatment home — for boys ages 6-18 with severe emotional and behavioral problems — lost its students’ activity center due to a massive fire in January of this year.

Plans are in the works to construct a new activity center and pavilion in the future. And thanks to Lowe’s and its crew of volunteer employees, the Gibson Cottage will already be spruced up and ready for service.

Lowe’s volunteers, affectionately called “Lowe’s Heroes,” from eight area Lowe’s stores, spent the week working on Sunrise’s Danville campus remodeling the Gibson Cottage, which is located directly behind the main Birney House.

The brick house has been uninhabited since the 1990s, according to Melissa Bailey, Sunrise marketing director.

The Lowe’s Heroes Program utilizes payroll hours to send volunteers to help nonprofits, Bailey said. And seven area Lowe’s stores donated about $28,000 worth of supplies and appliances for the project, Bailey said.

The donations include refrigerators, picnic tables, about 4,000 square feet of flooring, interior and exterior paints, ceiling fans, light fixtures, washers and dryers, 100 bags of mulch and painting supplies.

Bailey said some of the donations will be used toward rebuilding the activity center, and some will be used in other buildings on the property that need sprucing up.

“Sunrise is immensely blessed by the compassion and hard work of our friends at Lowe’s Heroes,” Bailey said. “We are grateful for community partners like Lowe’s who support our ministry because of the love they have for kids who are hurting. We couldn’t do what we do without them.”