Friday, December 14, 2007

A House United: Extreme Makeover Home Edition Hits Bridgeport


(As printed in the Fairfield Weekly, August 9, 2007)

It was a well-planned and perfectly organized swarm of blue worker bees—hundreds and maybe thousands of volunteers all dressed in ABC-TV-issued blue t-shirts—that changed the lives of East End Bridgeport's Brown family forever last week. And all it took to fuel the swarm was a few plates of ziti and chicken wings and nonstop water bottles and Micalizzi's Italian Ice handouts. All that, and the inspiring story of the Brown family who, according to press releases and news reports, is a strong and active binding force in the East End community even while they were living in complete destitution.

"Hey, if they can do it, why can't we?" was the feeling among the coming-and-going volunteers that decidedly did not want the Browns living in a junky house anymore. The Brown house was once half-burnt to a crisp, it was once burglarized to a pulp and it was once the ugliest, saddest house on the block. Now it's beautiful, it has a picket fence and I doubt this family will ever forget the fact that hundreds of complete strangers built it in a week's time. I've also heard that all three kids are getting full scholarships to Western Connecticut State University and the mortgage on the house is completely taken care of.

Not bad. Thank you, old trusty television! Where would we be without you? We'd be poor and uneducated, living in an ugly house, that's where.

I, and many other volunteers I talked to, couldn't help but wonder if Extreme Makeover, having chosen a poverty-stricken neighborhood for the build, would equip the house with an insane security system, but it remained to be seen at the time. I guess we'll have to wait until the show's October air date to find out for sure.

I volunteered on Monday night for about five hours after the Post, News 12, and various radio stations announced an extreme need for help that day.

When I arrived, the volunteer coordinator told me to go home and scrounge up some tools and return to Seaview Ave. It was there that I picked up a blue shirt and hard hat and took a school bus down to Hollister Ave. I never used the tools I brought, nothing hard fell on my hat and the shirt was 15 sizes too big. But that stuff didn't matter at all. The people I met were nothing but happy to be there, even when we were just standing around waiting to be told what to do, which was often.

At one time, there might have been 15 people working on the roof, five people handing out ice-cold wash rags, 30 people nailing siding to the house, 40 people sweeping and gathering trash, 25 people painting walls inside and 20 hanging off to the side waiting for someone in a yellow or red hard hat to tell them what to do next. But everyone was safe. And everyone was helping everyone.

Camera crews hovered all over, mostly picking up on any drama they could find and sometimes stopping the construction progress to get a shot of one of the hosts. And while I didn't get a glimpse of Ty Pennington in all his spiked-hair glory, he'll most likely be in more than half the shots they include in the show.

At one point I was instructed to help lift a gas stove and oven into the kitchen, but there was some confusion over whether or not a range was part of the plans. Steve Gulick, co-owner of the company in charge of construction, stood with me and fellow volunteer Ford Smith (Gulick's Fairfield neighbor) as we waited for a decision and he pointed out the towering camera aimed at us. We imagined a time-lapse scene showing the three of us standing still while workers sped by. Hey, if it happens, I'm the tall guy in the huge blue shirt, and so is Mr. Smith.

We heard rumors of being an entire day behind, but now, since the house is done and the family is living there happily, I wonder if the rumors were started just to get the workers to move quicker. If so, they worked. If not, well, they still worked.

Last week's workers went in strangers and came out experts in non-verbal communication. Grunts and inaudible yells were easily translated into orders, and orders were quickly translated into action. Lessons-learned include the fact that six people working together for six minutes can clean an entire yard and five people working together for 30 minutes can paint an entire room. People came and went all day and all night for a week and if they didn't stop and look at the progress, it was already too late to see it.

To think what it would be like to be on the receiving end of the show's famous "Door Knock," it's a wonder the Browns didn't pass out when they were chosen. Hey, family, wanna go to California? Yes, it's free. Yeah, and when you come back you'll basically live in a castle. Also for free. Sound like something you can handle?

Fred Brown (16), upon seeing the house last Wednesday, answered with back flips and handstands; Bobbi (17) and Jana'e (14) fell to the ground, and their perfectly jolly mother threw her handkerchief-grasping hands in the air. It was Habitat for Humanity meets The Price is Right and for every part of the program that's a silly reality show, there's an equal part that really makes it a really amazing, happy idea.

Could the hand of God be involved? More likely, it was the hand of some ABC-TV executive who chose Bridgeport for CT's film industry tax breaks.

But that doesn't matter: Even in these war-torn times, or whatever, it is virtually impossible to have doubts about humanity after volunteering and witnessing the hundreds of strangers working together for the first and probably only time.

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