Volunteers play key role in makeover of local house
MEDFIELD -- When television audiences tune into the ABC-TV show, ''Extreme Makeover: Home Edition," in about six weeks to see the transformation of a Medfield family's home, the episode will last an hour. But it won't tell the whole story.
It will begin with David and Heidi Johnson learning that they were chosen to receive a new house that is accessible to the handicapped to accommodate their son William, and end with them inside the sparkling new building, completely decorated.
What the ''reality TV" program won't show is Fran Pender directing spectators' cars to park in a grassy field or Mary Beth Schriver driving visitors to the site in the town's Council on Aging minibus, or any of the scores of other local residents who helped out behind the scenes.
Volunteers are helping to keep the workers fed and the construction equipment moving 24 hours a day for the whirlwind job, which will result in a new home completed on the Johnsons' lot this weekend -- in less than seven days.
''Ninety percent of the volunteers are housewives whose kids go to school with [the Johnsons' kids]," said Pender, who signed up for two shifts directing traffic despite never meeting the family. ''It's exciting. We want to help them out."
Schriver also didn't know the Johnson family -- nor had she driven the town bus before she signed up to volunteer. She manages and cooks for Dylan's, a Medfield coffee shop. This week, she planned to run the shop from 5:30 a.m. to 4 p.m., then drive the bus twice for four-hour shifts.
William Johnson has spinal muscular atrophy, a genetic condition that has caused his muscles to waste away, and he cannot stand or walk. The community previously had raised funds to pay for an addition to the Johnsons' home, but the foundation crumbled and the project was put on hold. Residents had been rooting for more than a year for the Johnsons to be picked by the show.
Landscape designer Monique Allen donated her expertise and called in a truckload of favors from suppliers to help with the project.
On Monday, she wore a white hard hat as she hugged her 2-year-old son, Bennett, and 4-year-old daughter, Maranda, across the street from dump trucks and heavy equipment sculpting the site.
Allen and her husband, Chris, were designing and overseeing the landscape design and site work, and were looking forward to 15 hours of work a day for the rest of the week. If their company, Garden Continuum, had billed for the work involved, it would have totaled about $250,000 and taken several months to complete, Allen said. But, she added, nobody on the job was grumbling about lost wages.
''We called every nursery . . . we knew for all of the sod, mulch, loam, and pavers we needed. Everything was donated," she said.
''The outpouring is phenomenal. Everybody put his heart and soul into this. It will knit the community together, and I don't just mean Medfield but the community of builders and landscapers."
Kathy Cook's voice trembled and tears welled up as she talked about the makeover. She's close to the Johnson family and is grateful that their personal hardship will be relieved. ''Many people had tried to raise funds for them" to add accessible rooms onto their home, she said. ''This is like a magic wand that's going to make it all go away. It's going to make [Heidi Johnson's] life so much better.
''There's nothing glamorous about any of this, it's just a bunch of small, menial tasks that have to be done to complete the job.
''And it's a bunch of guys with hammers and nails saving the day."
