Published March 15, 2007
MURFREESBORO, Ark. (ABP) -- Thanks to a popular network television show and an eclectic array of others, one Arkansas Baptist family now has a lot more room to breathe.
Dennis and Kim Collins, their son, Mitchell, and the five young cousins they've cared for during the past few years received the keys to their new, five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot home Feb.
26. The massive new manse is the focus of an episode of ABC's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."
The Murfreesboro, Ark.
, family is the latest recipient of a new home constructed by the Extreme team and RealSteel construction company of Rogers, Ark. Along with their son, Mitchell, and the "nieces and nephews," as Kim Collins calls the cousins, the family first set eyes on the home after spending a week at Florida's Walt Disney World. The trip came courtesy of the hit show.
The family attends Mount Moriah Baptist Church in Murfreesboro, where Kim serves as pianist. Mitchell, now a teenager, survived a rare form of brain cancer when he was 3 years old. The aliment left him with a mental handicap.
Mitchell is active in raising funds to help make patients comfortable while at Arkansas Children's Hospital in Little Rock, a place with which he is all too familiar. He raises money to help the hospital by collecting soft-drink tabs from aluminum cans.
The couple took in the extra brood after Kim's favorite cousin and her husband were killed in a car accident.
The Collinses refused to allow the state's court system to separate the children, now ages 5 to 16, according to Troy Carroll, their pastor.
The family previously lived in a 1,927-square-foot house. They closed in their carport to create an extra bedroom.
Last year, they built an addition with another bedroom and bathroom. But quarters were still cramped for the eight-member family.
Crews from the show bulldozed that home Feb.
19. For the next seven days, more than 1,500 volunteers -- almost as many people as live in the tiny hamlet of Murfreesboro -- worked 24 hours a day to help in the building project.
Among the volunteers were several Arkansas Baptists, including 25 from the Red River Baptist Association's disaster-relief team.
Using the association's rice cookers, the volunteers worked with the RealSteel team's catering operation, serving soup to workers and other volunteers.
Joe Burt, the association's director, said he was privileged to help out for a deserving cause. "It was a great experience to see so many volunteers come to meet this family's need and to be a part of the support team for the volunteers," he said.
"It interested me seeing the initial home that this family lived in with eight people and then to know that a new home was built in less than seven days that more than met their needs."
Murfreesboro's First Baptist Church also pitched in, allowing the church van to serve as one of several shuttle buses for the project. They transported visitors and volunteers from Murfreesboro to the construction site, a few miles outside the town.
RealSteel president Steve Butcher and his wife, Yavonne, are active members of Pinnacle Hills Church in Rogers, Ark. Along with local volunteers and skilled laborers, RealSteel brought a 70-person building crew from Biloxi, Miss. The team has been rebuilding in a community that Hurricane Katrina destroyed a year and a half ago.
The company has worked with the TV show before, on home construction projects in Missouri and another Arkansas town.
RealSteel's Butcher, on the company's website, said, "Without consideration for their own comfort, the Collins family fought to reunite five children that were struck with grief of separation from each other after the loss of their parents .
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