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Opened in October 1984, The Loading Dock, Inc., (TLD) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit organization with a mission to improve living conditions for families, neighborhoods, and communities, while positively impacting the environment, through redistributing surplus building materials. TLD operates out of a 42,000 sq. ft. warehouse in southeast Baltimore and serves as the state's central clearinghouse for salvaged surplus building materials that are otherwise headed for landfills and redistributes them. Since 1984, TLD has saved low-income housing and community projects over $16.5 million and has rescued over 33,000 tons of building materials from landfills. TLD accepts all kinds of materials, including paint, lumber, plumbing fixtures, doors, cabinets, windows, caulks, moldings and just about anything reusable from the home building industry. TLD has rescued thousands of tons of building materials from landfills, assisted more than 8,500 individuals and groups and partnered with more than 400 manufacturers, distributors and contractors in the Mid-Atlantic region. The first non-profit program of its kind in the nation, TLD represents a successful marriage between nonprofit organizations and businesses that offers a creative way to tackle housing and environmental issues. It has inspired similar programs in other cities nationwide and has fielded requests for information from, and lent technical assistance to, more than 300 cities, some as far away as Tijuana, Mexico, St. Johns and St. Croix in the Caribbean, five countries on the west coast of Africa, Hungary and Germany. TLD serves as a national model for communities interested in starting a reuse facility and is the recipient of two prestigious national awards: the Presidential Award for Sustainable Development and the United Nations Habitat II "Building Communities of Opportunity" National Excellence Award.