Saturday 23 October 2010

Extreme Makeover: Mariah Carey coming Sunday

Music superstar Mariah Carey is expected to be in Pensacola on Sunday to help present a soon-to-be local family with a new home. Carey, whose Christmas album comes out November 2, will appear with the team from ABC's hit reality show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" to present the home to Finis Gaston and his family, according to show producer Brady Connell.

Gaston, 29, currently a Baker resident, will live in the 3,500-square-foot home with four younger family members. The family plans to return today from Walt Disney World. They were sent to Orlando while a small army of volunteers built the home. Construction on the brick home began Tuesday. On Friday, crews were laying sod and working on other landscaping.

"Look at all the work they've done," said spectator Peggy Landkammer, 60, of Pensacola, as she watched volunteers work on the yard of the home, which is north of Michigan Avenue, just west of W Street. "I was out here Wednesday, and they didn't even have the roof on."

The episode is expected to air in December, which is one reason workers have been wearing Santa Claus hats during much of the landscaping work. (During construction, they wore hard hats.) Connell said the Pensacola episode is different from most of the previous episodes because the home is being built on donated land instead of land the recipient family already owns. Connell said that's because most previous episodes featured people "who had already been homeowners". Now, he said, they're trying to help more first-time homeowners, such as Gaston.

"It's so hard to qualify for a home loan," Connell said. "This is a way we can help people realize that dream of a first home. I'm looking at the deed now." The home was built on land the Escambia County Commission sold for $1 to a nonprofit agency, Community Enterprises Investments Inc., which supplies housing to organizations that help build affordable housing for the needy, such as Habitat for Humanity.

Connell said he and the show's producers have been touched by Gaston's story. When Gaston's mother died a few years ago, he left Alabama A&M University to care for his niece and nephews, all of whom will live with Gaston. "He was following his dream," Connell said. "But he stepped back from it because of the responsibility he felt to his family. We were moved by that."

Connell said he is aware that some local Internet posters have complained that Gaston's police record isn't pristine. He has numerous past driving and traffic offenses. Connell said producers do thorough background checks on home recipients. "We felt the infractions from his past were not significant enough to keep him from this opportunity," Connell said. "So things like driving with a suspended license didn't play a part. When I was 22, I did worse than that."

(Pensacola News Journal)



COMMENTS
There are not yet comments to this article.

Only registrated members can post a comment.
© MCArchives 1998-2024 (26 years!)
NEWS
MESSAGEBOARD