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From Home Furnishing Business
Container Store Chooses Kaleidoscope Project for Giving Campaign
June 26,
2023 by HFBusiness Staff in Business Strategy, Industry 
After thorough review, the MOSAIC employee resource group at The Container Store, the nation’s specialty retailer of organizing solutions, custom spaces, and in-home services, has chosen The Kaleidoscope Project as the beneficiary of one of the company’s yearlong giving campaigns.
Throughout the year the company will be hosting a giving campaign through which employees and customers can support The Kaleidoscope Project’s work to increase representation of Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in the creative design industry.
The Container Store is also a Diamond Sponsor of the Kaleidoscope Project’s High Point hotel renovation project in North Carolina.
“Our MOSAIC employee resource group reviewed and carefully selected The Kaleidoscope Project as our partner because of the great work they do to empower creatives in the BIPOC community,” said LaTisha Brandon, vice president of DEI, culture & charitable giving for The Container Store.
“Our company was founded on the principles of treating employees, customers, vendors, and shareholders with dignity and respect, and our employee resource groups are committed to supporting causes that make a lasting social and economic impact. We are thrilled to partner with The Kaleidoscope Project to champion and support the work of BIPOC designers.”
The Kaleidoscope Project is a cultural creative collaborative that supports a united vibrant design community. It elevates emerging and established faces of design from all global corners; and provides educational and industry opportunities for stellar young creative talent.
The Kaleidoscope Project specializes in designer showhouses built in historic spaces. Since its inception, The Kaleidoscope Project has worked with more than 42 designers, seventeen interns, and eight artists, completing two evergreen design projects.
They were renovating a historic thirty guestroom inn around the themes of rest, reflection, and rejuvenation and transforming a turn-of-the-century firehouse into luxurious, yet affordable housing apartments. Once each showhouse concludes, the designers’ work lives on in the spaces they leave behind.
Through its sponsorship of the High Point hotel project, The Container Store will support the renovation of the historic hotel (formerly the Red Lion Inn). The hotel project features more than a dozen BIPOC designers who will transform public spaces, hotel rooms and guest suites according to their unique vision.
The closet spaces in each room will be transformed using The Container Store Custom Spaces, with varying finishes and hardware according to the designers’ preferences.
“We are honored to partner with The Container Store, a company that supports our broader design narrative of amplifying the voices of those who have rarely been given a voice to be heard,” said Amy Lynn Schwartzbard, principal of The Life Designs Group, LD Hospitality Resources, and co-founder of The Kaleidoscope Project, a non-profit 501(c)3 organization.
“Our team of designers are excited to work with The Container Store on our next renovation project showcasing The Container Store’s power to transform spaces through their services and solutions.”
The designer showhouses are the most visible part of the organization’s work, but it is the organization’s educational initiatives for young creatives, like their internships, sustainable focus, and educational programs that have the greatest impact.
“The work of our foundation sets the groundwork for high school and college students who are passionate about design and the visual arts to have education, pathways, and opportunities that they were not aware of previously.”
“We are so grateful to our industry partners, sponsors, and collaborators and especially to The Container Store for generously supporting and promoting these opportunities,” Schwartzbard concluded.
Through its giving campaign, The Container Store will support the work of The Kaleidoscope Project, including its internships for students in high school and college and the scholarships it funds for those interns to receive Green Leader Certification through the Sustainable Furniture Council. Those scholarships enable young BIPOC creatives to enter their industry with a knowledge of sustainability.
To encourage customer and employee contributions to the giving campaign, The Container Store will utilize its social media, email, internal communications, online blog, and in-store signage in its 97 locations during relevant monthly observances throughout the year.
Donations can be made to support The Kaleidoscope Project giving campaign at The Container Store in store locations at the register or online by clicking here.