ABC's "Extreme Makeover" Launches a Home

The beginning of this week's edition of "Extreme Makeover" was very different from all the other shows. Ty Pennington and company flew to Florida for a surprise greeting to the Hurston family at an airport. As most of you know, the "Extreme Makeover" crew usually visits the chosen family in the morning and by bus where Ty wakes them up with his loud vocal chords.

Joe and Cindy Hurston met 17 years ago in Haiti where Cindy was working as a nurse. They now have three children: Juliet whose 17 and was adopted from Haiti at age 3; Peter, age 13; and Dieunika, age 5 who was also adopted from Haiti at age 2.

Joe and Cindy started a nonprofit called Air Mobile and wherever there's a natural disaster, they fly to that corner of the world bringing fresh water and water purifiers. They've been doing this for many years by finding donors to fund their water purifiers and then they fly them to the disaster sites.

While they were away on a mission, an upstairs bathroom sink pipe broke and water flooded their home. Extensive damage was the result and they had to move into an RV to have clean facilities. That's cramped quarters for a family of five.

Their home quickly became full of mildew and mold, not to mention all the water damage.

Then the earthquake in Haiti hit. The Hurston's put fixing their home aside because of the severity of the earthquake in Haiti, a country they were so familiar with and loved. Air Mobile was one of the first private airplanes allowed into Haiti after the earthquake. The Hurston's continue to make trips to Haiti bringing in the much needed water purifiers that can make any contaminated water fit for human consumption.

While "Extreme Makeover" sent the Hurston family for a much needed vacation in San Diego, the "Extreme Makeover" team beefed up the Hurston's old airplane by giving it a new paint job and a state-of-the-art navigation system. This makeover was sponsored by Ford.

In the meantime, "Extreme Makeover" demolished the Hurston's home with the help of a NASA simulator and launched it into outer space. It was quite the show.

Jake Luhn was the builder for this episode and he was pretty excited to help the Hurston's out.

The new home that was built for the Hurston's was quite unusual, even for the "Extreme Makeover" crew. They outdid themselves on this one.

As you entered the home, the fuselage of a 737 aircraft lined the hallway for 22 feet on both sides of the hallway. Even the little windows were kept intact and there was a space for First Class dining at the end of the fuselage.

Bank of America donated a $100,000 grant to the Air Mobile nonprofit organization as well as donating water purifiers to send to Haiti.

If you'd like to see this episode and view this "fuselage" inside the home, just click here.

Source: ABC's "Extreme Makeover"; 2/13/11