San Antonio St. Jude Hospital Dream Home® Is Beneficiary Of Latest Florida Tile Designs

SAN ANTONIO, TX ⎯ When the latest St. Jude Dream Home® opened for public tours Oct. 14, visitors got to see not only what community volunteerism can achieve, but also some of the latest US-made products available, including new designs from Florida Tile.

According to Florida Tile Marketing Director Sean Cilona, about 3,000 square feet of space in this home, built as a fundraiser for St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital, features products from the Kentucky-based company. “Included in the Florida Tile donation were the new Paramount HDP High Definition Porcelain and just-released Berkshire HDP wood fashioned in Hickory, as well as Florida Tile's best selling color Legend HDP Titan," he said.

Cilona said the purpose of the home’s construction in San Antonio and in cities across the US is to raise money to support St. Jude’s million-dollar-a-day operating costs.

“We were approached for materials by one of our major distributors, Stone Solutions, Inc. headquartered in Austin which, in turn, had been contacted to help on the project by one of its major interior design firms, Class Covers & Colors Interior Design, Inc. Rather than donate surplus or outdated product, Florida Tile continues to feel that projects like this one deserve the best,” Cilona said, “which is why we shipped our newest and our best, especially since the home was built in the desirable Cresta Bella subdivision of Northwest San Antonio and built by Stadler Custom Homes.”

Said John Stark of Stone Solutions, “The neat thing about this project was how everyone pitched in from contributors like Florida Tile to the installation crews. There were hard costs involved from shipping to paying the salaries of the installers. In the end, the home makes a nice, compact impact statement for the upscale subdivision and for contributors like Florida Tile which supplied more than 3,000 square feet, virtually the home’s entire floor surface. Importantly, we felt this this was a US deal and needed a US tile-maker.”

According to St. Jude, to date more than 30 dream homes valued between $300,000 and $700,000 are or have been built nationwide. When a home is finished, tickets are sold at $100 each with the winner receiving the keys to the new home. ALL proceeds from the sale go to St. Jude’s. In the case of the San Antonio Dream Home, valued at $600,000, tickets are limited to 8,550 tickets. Officials close to the project say that within five days of the showcase opening, more than two-thirds of tickets had been sold.

The winner of the new dream home will be drawn Nov. 3.

For more information on St. Jude Hospital and the San Antonio St. Jude Dream Home Giveaway visit www.stjude.org/dhsanantonio

For more information on Stone Solutions, Inc. visit www.stonesolutions.com

Florida Tile is a fully owned subsidiary of Panariagroup, a publicly owned company traded on the Milan Stock Exchange (MILAN: PAN IM). Panariagroup is a leading manufacturer and distributor in over 60 countries around the world with six manufacturing sites in Italy, Portugal and the USA and eight brands positioned in the high-end of the market. www.panariagroup.it.