November 1, 2004
I don't watch much TV these days, but I started tuning into Extreme Makeover: Home Edition on Sunday nights.

Man, o man, if you don't watch this show, just try it once. This coming Sunday night is a two-hour special where they are going to renovate a home for a family that has one son who is blind and another who is deaf.

The show selects families who send in videos to explain their plight, and the team swoops in with volunteer help to transform "homes" (some of them are in such terrible shape I hesitate to use that word) into wonderlands, havens, oases. It's a powerful show that demonstrates how changing an environment can change a life.

There are theatrics and entertainment involved to make it fun to watch, so it's more than establishing a safe and healthy home; they also want it to look cute and appealing esthetically. For the same amount of energy and investment they could probably build 45 Habitat for Humanity homes, but I'm not complaining. No, I'm advocating it as positive television demonstrating how people can make a tangible difference. It's so much more exciting to watch than other reality TV shows that are about greed and gaining. It's about sacrifice and giving. I'd love to see more of this, more of the power of human beings pouring into each other's lives. Media can do this, if those with the power are willing to take the risk, and it seems that they are.

Bravo to ABC, to the folks putting this show together, and for all the companies donating stuff and time and energy and skill so that families in need can be blessed. Sure, the blessings are all things that you can't take with you in the end, but they are also things that breathe hope into people's spirits. For example, this past week highlighted a single woman who adopted two children who were born addicted to drugs. She nursed them through to health and has raised these outstanding young boys making tremendous sacrifices and dealing with dismal circumstances. She contacted the show because a contractor had bailed on them leaving their home in shambles, uninhabitable. They were renting a one-room attic space with the mom sleeping on a chair. The boys are twelve years old.

At the end of the show, after touring their new space, the contractor announced that they are pledging a scholarship so that the boys can go to college. So it's more than colorful drapes and ingenious fireplaces. It's about generosity from big hearts.

And it's fun, too.