This week we meet our last family of the season to shoot our finale, and what an amazing and fitting story to close out another great year. We are in Indianapolis, Indiana to meet the McFarlands: Bernard and his three boys, Domonique, Curtis and Courtney.
Bernard McFarland is a pillar of this community, and he's an amazing father. He's raising his three boys on his own in a house that's ...
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This week we're in Jamesville, North Carolina to meet the Cooper family. To say that Jeff Cooper is an American hero might be a bit of an understatement. He served in the US Army as a Combat Medic in "Operation Desert Shield / Desert Storm." During that time, he earned two Army Commendation Medals, the Army Achievement medal, the Good Conduct Medal, the Overseas Service Ribbon, the Humanitarians Service Medal, the Southwest Asia Service Medal, the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Saudi Arabia), the Kuwait Liberation Medal (Kuwait) Army Service Ribbon, a Combat Medical Badge, Expert Field Medical Badge Expert Rifle Badge and Expert Grenade Badge.
Like so many of his fellow soldiers who served in the first Gulf War, Jeff Cooper ...
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Born with no legs and only one fully developed arm, Mary Ann Riojas is no stranger to adversity. After graduating from high school, Mary Ann fell in love, got married and had four children. Soon after the birth of her fourth child, the marriage ended. She enrolled in college and for the first time in her life and she got her driver's license. With renewed independence, she earned her Associates Degree in business and immediately ...
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So this season, we're all about celebrating heroes and this week were celebrating the Akers family in beautiful Holt, Michigan.
There's no shortage of heroes in the Akers' home. Greg and Ginger Akers have three children, Christian, Brooke, and Faith. Little Brooke and Faith suffer from SMA, spinal muscular atrophy. It's a horribly debilitating disease, and they can't walk. They're in chairs, and this house is working against them. Spinal muscular atrophy is the number one genetic killer of children under two years old. One in 40 people carry the gene and one out of 6,000 children are born with it. The fact that these two girls have SMA is bad enough, but Greg and his son Christian both have Crones disease, which is a gastrointestinal disease that can be devastatingly painful. Despite their conditions, this family wakes up every morning with a smile on their face, and they always put others first. To me, that's a true hero.
Read much more from Michael after the jump.
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The Akers Family by Greg Zabilski/ABC, Michael Moloney by Bob D' Amico/ABC
So this season, we're all about celebrating heroes and this week were celebrating the Akers family in beautiful Holt, Michigan.
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This week we're in Farmville, Virginia to meet the Lucas family: Michael, his wife Jean, and their two boys, Michael and Joe. Michael and Jean have been happily married for many years, and life has been going very well. Michael loves his country, and he enlisted in the National Guard. Then, lo and behold, he got the call and had to get up and go and leave his family behind. The story this week is really about all of those parents, husbands, wives and children who are left behind when their loved ones go to fight for our country. Regardless of what's going on, or where they're at in their lives, they get up and go to defend us. Jean stayed back with the two boys, and they stayed in a rental, and the rental was pretty rough, but they were making due because they knew one day they'd be in their dream house. She's pretty amazing herself; she never expected to be raising those two boys by herself, and when Michael left that was the reality. It's not easy raising two boys on your own. Mic...
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This week we’re in Louisville, KY to meet the Hughes family. Patricia and Patrick John Hughes’s eldest son, Patrick Henry, was born blind and without the ability to fully straighten his arms and legs, leaving him unable to walk. Despite circumstances that seem overwhelming, Patrick Henry has exhibited extreme strength and a positive attitude in order to achieve his goals. Not only is Patrick Henry an amazing pianist, having played since he was 9 months old, but he also excels at the trumpet and singing. He’s even Part of the University of Louisville School of Music Marching and Pep Band To me this week is about the glass being half full. I think it’s how you look at things. The cards are dealt, but it’s how you look at them. Patrick Henry has never seen his disabilities, matter of fact, he thinks that you and I are the ones with the disability. Because we judge people. We see people for their color or their race or what have you. He doesn’t. He judges...
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This week we're in Manchester, New Hampshire to meet the Voisine family — Ray, Casey, and their four boys. Now everything was going great for the family, they were living in their dream home, and life was really good. This is where we should say, "and they all lived happily ever after." Sadly we can't. When the rains started in mid May 2006, the Voisines thought they were immune to the predicted flooding. Their house wasn't in a flood zone. In fact, there was a four-lane highway between their neighborhood and the river. But as the waters began to rise, Casey Voisine started getting nervous. After four days of pouring, it was clear that the water that was rising outside their home was far more than a puddle. By midnight on Mothers Day, the water had made its way into the house, soaked the carpet and was rising to the level of the electrical outlets! Within a few days, the Governor had declared a state of emergency, FEMA had been dispatched and assessments were being made of the ...
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This week we're in Pinon, Arizona — actually the far northeast corner of Arizona on the Navajo reservation — and we're here to meet a very special Navajo family, the Yazzies. Mom Georgia and her kids: Geralene, Garrett, and Gwendolyn. Gwen has epilepsy and severe asthma and they were heating the house with coal. Coal is expensive, does not burn clean air and was basically wreaking havoc on Gwen's respiratory system. Being the great brother he is, Garrett began looking for a way to help his sister and he came up with something pretty amazing. When he was just 13 years old he had an idea to heat his family's home. He used 16 tin cans and an old radiator from a car to create a solar heating system to warm his family. Now this didn't go unnoticed, he received many awards and accolades but his dream didn't stop there, he contacted us to let us know that his family still needed help. The home, a trailer, was basically falling apart all around them. Garrett Yazzie has asked us ...
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This week we're in Billings, Montana, to meet the Carter family. Lon, Julie and their three daughters Jade, Sapphire and Lily. Montana's Big Sky country — brutal winters, hot summers, rattlesnakes and chicken coops. The Carter family actually lives in an old refurbished chicken coop — really a chicken coop — they've tried to make the best of their circumstances, but living in that chicken coop has not been easy. Lon's done everything he can to fix it up and make it as good as it's gonna get, but we can do a lot better. As bad as living in a chicken coop is, it's not the only hardship facing this family. Julie and her daughters all suffer from an extremely rare condition called Chiari Malformation. Chiari Malformation is a condition that has over 85 symptoms, making it very easy to misdiagnose. Many doctors claim patients are just depressed or have chronic fatigue syndrome, but this disease is real and afflicts more than 250,000 — most not knowing they have it. Ju...
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