'Extreme Makeover' Rally Builds Spirit
By Adva Saldinger
The (Myrtle Beach) Sun News

Volunteers, construction professionals and community members came together Tuesday to find out what to expect during the "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" build in Horry County next week.

A needy area family will be told Monday that the ABC reality show will build a house for them in seven days.

Producers from the show and the local builders, Sterling Homes, told a standing-room-only crowd of more than 250 people in Coastal Carolina University's Wall Auditorium what they will need for the project and showed videos of past builds.

"Thousands of people are going to come together and make the impossible happen," said Conrad Ricketts, the show's executive producer. "The house is a statement to who we are, how we come together."

He likened the concept of the show to the tradition of barn raising and said that without the people in the room Tuesday the project cannot be completed.

In 2007, "Extreme Makeover" built a house in Longs for Renee Wilson and this is only the second time in the show's history that it has returned to the same area to build. Ricketts said his staff members fondly remember the 2007 build and that the community and builder support has brought the show back.

"When you say the word family, extended family, neighborhood, community. This is a place where they are not words, they are deeds," he said.

Ricketts said two things are most important with the house - safety and quality.

"This is not a movie set where sticky tape holds up walls," he said.

On other projects, roofers or plumbers might be competing for work, but not with the "Extreme Makeover" build.

"This is about the community coming together," Ricketts said. "We're seeing more people stepping up to volunteer. It's because instinctively we understand the strength of this nation, which is neighbor helping neighbor."

Mary Smith of North Myrtle Beach said she has already signed up to volunteer for next week's build and wanted to come to the pep rally to learn more. She said she watches the show every week and was moved by the presentation.

"I just think it emphasized that a lot of people are not as well off as other people, and it's not because they didn't try," she said.

The rally succeeded in the goal of motivating people to show up and do everything they can, Smith said.

Smith came with Deborah Gass of Little River, who said she was out at the build every day the last time, even in the rain and cold. As the grandmother of a special needs child the show touches her, she said.

"I just want to be a helping hand," Gass said.

Harry Dill, a partner at Sterling Homes, said that the support from other builders has been phenomenal.

"This time, with the industry in the shape that it's in this is humbling to me that all of you would support us and help this family," he said. "This is an opportunity to change a family's life forever."

Dill, who choked up as he spoke to the audience, said the house will not be built without the help of the community.

The company has about 90 percent of the volunteers and materials it needs for the new house but is still looking for more help, including insulation and roofing supplies, professional roofers and plumbers.

"The homebuilding industry has been depleted," said Clinch Heyward, also a partner at Sterling Homes. "Then we thought we've all endured a lot, been frightened, beat up. Then we thought maybe that was the reason we should do it."

Enrique Reyes, who works for Creekside Custom Homes and will bring a team of ten framers to help on the house next week, knows the challenges of the industry first hand.

"We've been slow, as you know, the economy is really bad but I've got a little bit of man power," he said. "We're not doing too good ourselves but we can do good for a family so that's a good thing."

Reyes said that many of the people he works with are struggling, as work in the building industry has slowed dramatically in the past few years, but when he told them about the project they quickly volunteered.

Ricketts was impressed by the response from people in the community, including those that were themselves struggling, he said.

John Hiley from Little River, who has been looking for work for six months, came to learn more about how to volunteer.

"I figured if I can't get paid to do something I got the time to do something for nothing," he said. But it's not nothing he'll get in return, Hiley said. "You can't buy the kind of thing you get from this."