Rib Hillis, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition: The Kings
We're here this week helping the King family in Charlotte, North Carolina, the King family is an incredible family, who run a daycare out of their home, going above and beyond the call of duty for their community all while trying to live, grow and thrive in their little home/business.
Alisha with her husband Curtis, along with their sons Justin and Kirkland and daughter Laila, provide a gift to single parents in their community by providing a safe, nurturing, affordable and sometimes free daycare. When Ty showed us the tape of the King family, the thing that struck me the most was when the families who are part of the step-by-step daycare were talking about them...you could really get a sense of how much they give this community and how much they are loved by this community, so it's really great honor for me to be able to be here to help them this week.
Running a daycare out of their home is difficult, it's just a normal home, and the daycare is basically a converted garage, they've done so much with so little it's a great little room, and a great environment for these kids to come to and you know, be safe and grow and thrive but, but there was a mold problem and it wasn't healthy for little Leila and certainly wasn't healthy for the other kids in the daycare program. I've been in a lot of different homes and we come to these houses that are run down, dilapidated, but this home in particular just smelled like mold, this musty, strong smell, as soon as you walked in the door, I mean I don't have respiratory problems and I was having trouble breathing when I was in there, and imagine Leila who, who already has some respiratory problems, I mean this house is, is literally killing her, we got to fix that.
This week we were in really good hands because our builder, Rick Merlini of American Heartland Homes, has already built a home for us, not only that, but he built it in fifty three hours which is the record, so I feel really confident that we're going to get this project done on time. It was really great to be able to spend some time this week and get to know Rick and meet his family I mean, this is amazing man, he's come down here and he's going to take on this challenge a second time, he's very passionate about what he does and you know you can tell as a family man how much it means to him, to help out another family.
I'm doing two rooms, one for 19-year-old Justin and one for 11-year-old Kirkland. Now Justin's room, it's more of an adult mature you know, the next step room. But then there's Kirkland's room, which is just going to be this crazy wild mad scientist room, and I get to do all the experiments.
It's all about giving to a family who has given so much of themselves to the community. I mean the King family they didn't have anything and yet they somehow found the ability to run this daycare program and what's great about this week is that I know that all our work that we put in, and all the things that we give them, it's just going to spread out through the community. You know everything that we give to them it's going to be given back in tenfold to the whole community. I got the chance to help a family who has and will continue to help so many people.
