MAYNARD - The tiny town of Maynard has supported the Giunta family for nearly two years, ever since a car accident left Paul Giunta, a father of three, unable to walk and unable even to live in his own house, due to his bulky wheelchair.
Town residents raised money for the Giuntas, sometimes in donations of thousands of dollars. They made meals for them and kept them in their prayers. But they couldn't give them what they really needed, a new house. Not until this week. That's when 3,000 local volunteers gathered for a good old-fashioned barn-raising, with the help of some modern-day Hollywood magic courtesy of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
This was television, to be broadcast in May. But it was also real life, so real that the schools in town closed early yesterday so children could see. So real that thousands of people waited in freezing temperatures just to be there when the Giuntas came home to their new house for the first time. They stood there, and they chanted a simple phrase, "Bring Paul home."
The Giuntas' tragic story began with joy on March 26, 2006, as Renee Giunta gave birth in Boston to the family's third child, a girl, Brianna. Hours later, after returning home to Maynard to tend to the couple's two other children, Paul Giunta, 37, suffered severe head injuries when his car crashed into a wall.
A stroke as a result of those injuries ultimately left him unable to walk, said his sister Laurie. And even when he recovered well enough to leave the hospital last year, Paul Giunta faced still more obstacles. His wheelchair would not fit through the doors of his home in Maynard, and Giunta was forced to live with his parents in a retirement home in Marlborough.
But friends and family had an idea. From Maynard, population 10,500, they reached out to Hollywood, asking "Extreme Makeover" producers to consider the Giuntas while planning the fifth season of a show devoted to rebuilding the homes of people in need. And it wasn't just a few people asking, said the show's executive producer, Denise Cramsey. It was "literally the entire town," she said.
"We've never had this kind of reaction before," Cramsey said yesterday. "Per capita, this is the biggest outpouring of support that we've ever seen."
The show slated the Giuntas for one of its 25 episodes this season, and last Sunday afternoon the work began. Construction crews demolished the Giuntas' modest ranch house in a neighborhood filled with modest ranch houses, and contractors from Maynard to Chelmsford volunteered their time and resources, working around the clock in freezing temperatures.
Roofers from Billerica put on a new $5,000 roof for free. Heating and air conditioning specialists from Chelmsford installed a new system, gratis. And some 3,000 volunteers, many of them from Maynard, planted daffodils and tulips in the front yard, picked up trash, laid sod, and put up a fence.
"It's such an overwhelming experience to witness," said Joan MacIver, a resident of Maynard since 1965. "It's a whole lot different than when you're watching the show and it's somebody else. Because when you have the least bit of connection to the family, you feel as though you owe them as much support as you could possibly give them."
This little town 30 miles west of Boston was abuzz and not just with rumored sightings of the television show's spiky-haired host, Ty Pennington. This was must-see reality. And by yesterday, it seemed, everyone in Maynard was standing outside the Giuntas' new house on Elm Court.
The high school cheerleaders were there with white ribbons in their hair and pompoms in their hands. The high school mascot, a tiger, was there, as were local politicians and the chief of police. Cops were everywhere, in fact, closing down roads. Police Chief James Corcoran said his 21-officer department never would have been able to handle the crowds without help from officers in Stow and at the Middlesex County sheriff's office.
They stood and they waited. They waited and they stood. Then, just after 3 p.m., a black limousine pulled onto Elm Court, ferrying Paul and Renee Giunta and their three children, Dylan, 6; Cameron, 4; and Brianna, nearly 2.
"It's him!" cried Mike Kutlowski, a Maynard resident who took off work yesterday, as he spied Paul Giunta in his wheelchair amid the crowd. But blindfolded in the limo and then parked behind a large charter bus, the Giuntas still could not see their new, 3,000-square-foot, handicapped-accessible home.
Then the bus moved, and Renee Giunta covered her mouth with her hands, fighting the tears welling up inside her. She turned to her husband and told him something just loud enough for everyone to hear.
"Welcome home, Paul."
O'Brien can be reached at kobrien@globe.com.
