Donn Esmonde: May miracles of makeover multiply
I have seen it with my own eyes. I have seen what at first seemed like a made-for-TV, one-house makeover morph -- Buffalo-style -- into a mini-neighborhood resurrection. I have seen people on battered streets reinjected with hope by the kindness of strangers. I have seen how a single event can spark an outpouring that elevates hundreds of lives.
Having seen it once, I would love to see it again. And again.
"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" came to town last week. The ABC-TV show, in which a needy family's house is transformed into a dream home, landed on Massachusetts Avenue on the tattered lower West Side. Delores Powell's home was remade.
It seemed at first no bigger than a one-home event. It is nice, but does not change the landscape of a city with thousands of decrepit houses.
But no. A story that started with one house, ended with a whole neighborhood. Some 50 houses got help. Fix-ups ranged from a coat of paint to the new roof, porch and shrubs gifted to Sonia Herrera.
She is 43, with six kids and a husband gripped by dementia. Her front porch was rotted, her roof a mess, and repair was a fantasy on her nurse's aide pay. Then, last week, there was a knock at her door.
"It was two guys," she told me Saturday morning, her voice barely above a whisper. "They said they could fix our porch and roof ... I was more than pleased. I was amazed."
Take that story, multiply it by 50, and you have the Miracle of Massachusetts Avenue. It is a miracle that I think can happen again. And again.
This was not just about giving a huge hand to poor people who felt largely forgotten. This was about the helpers getting a firsthand look -- some of them for the first time -- at a neighborhood that, under ordinary circumstances, most of whom would not have walked through on a bet.
The image a lot of people have of these streets is flashing police lights on the TV news. The drama misses a deeper truth known to postal workers, cops and other regular visitors: On even the worst of streets, decent people who need a break outnumber the drug dealers behind the mayhem.
The TV show brought people with means into a neighborhood of needs. Mike Blatner of Orchard Park used to own a heating company. He saw that the Herreras did not, amazingly, have hot water. He made some calls. The Herreras now have a hot water tank.
This is what happens when city/suburban, have-more/have-less barriers are broken down. What we saw this week on a few West Side blocks is the all-for-one, we're-in-this-together spirit that is at the core of this thing called regionalism.
From what I saw and heard, what happened on Massachusetts Avenue was a two-way street. People got help. And the helpers, in return, saw what these streets are about.
"It's a beat-up neighborhood, but people are seeing that there is a lot of pride here," said Todd Cameron of Buffalo Roofing, which did a full tear-down on 72-year-old Joe Marino Sr.'s house.
We do not need Ty Pennington to show us the way from here.
What happened last week, I think, lays the foundation to keep the "Extreme" example alive by, say, every six months carpet-bombing a different needy neighborhood with home-repair kindness. I hear that charitable foundations are talking about backing future "makeovers." AmeriCorps volunteers stand ready. Contractors are in.
"We made an agreement with AmeriCorps to continue donating our services," said Cameron, of Buffalo Roofing. "This is the beginning of something bigger than this weekend."
"Extreme Makeover" is gone. There is no reason the story has to end.
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