Cancel your house parties! Extreme Makeover: Home Edition will be airing their Buffalo show, a two-hour special, on January 24th, from 8 to 10PM. Buffalo ReUse, People United for Sustainable Housing (PUSH) Buffalo, and WNY AmeriCorps have reserved Shea’s Performing Arts Center from 7 to 10PM, so that you and 2,999 of your closest friends can watch it together.
The show will center around the remake of Delores Powell’s residence at 228 Massachusetts on the city’s West Side that took place this past fall.
Channel 7, the local ABC affiliate will air their own special prior to Extreme Makeover, including local footage and information surrounding the renovation, the neighborhood and the entities involved.
WNY AmeriCorps Founder and CEO Mark Lazzara, whose enormous team of AmeriCorp volunteers was instrumental in the home makeover, began with thanks to David Homes, the lead agency in rebuilding the Powell home. “It was so exciting to be part of this,” Lazzara said.
Michael Gainer of Buffalo ReUse – whose crew removed the previous house in 15 hours – said that he sees the airing event at Shea’s as “a red carpet opportunity” to highlight the community’s achievements and build momentum for future collaborative endeavors. He called the effort it took to get the Powell home done from start to finish “a good, shining example of collaboration.”
PUSH Buffalo Organizing Director Eric Walker said PUSH has been excited since Extreme Makeover first started scouting the area, and said that the culminating rebuild of the Powell home “brought back the notion that the community is the power – the rock” behind efforts like this one. “And we’ll continue to work on that assumption, working on a bigger, grander scale.” Walker says the event brought attention back “to a street that might have been forgotten.”
Lazzara finished by saying that he was thrilled by the idea of the community coming together to watch the ABC special, saying, “We touched 71 houses in that neighborhood. We have been and always will be dedicated to serving the least and the lost.”
There will be tables set up at the event by all of the non-profits involved, so that volunteers can join and sign up for future endeavors.
3,000 tickets in all will be available, with a limit of two per person, at ReUse, PUSH and the Shea’s box office. There is no charge for the tickets, but a $10 “free will donation” is hoped for. Shea’s concessions will be open on the 24th.