Generous Arkansas family receives generosity from TV makeover

Updated: 3/30/07

Generous Arkansas family receives
generosity from TV makeover

By Stella Prather

Arkansas Baptist Newsmagazine

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 recently received the keys to their new five-bedroom, 4,900-square-foot home. 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 Mrs. Collins serves as pianist. Mitchell, now a teenager, survived a rare form of brain cancer when he was 3 years old. The ailment 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 Mrs. Collins’ 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 their pastor, Troy Carroll.

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 still were 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 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 of missions, 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 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. … During the construction of this house, and of the airing of the show, many lives will be touched. Even though very few participants will ever meet the family, each volunteer and worker will become part of the Collinses’ extended family and will forever be blessed by the experience. Whether received on earth or in heaven, the greatest rewards always come from helping others. I recommend everyone give it a try.”

Yavonne Butcher, who served as volunteer coordinator for the project, called the Extreme project a “joy” and a “blessing to be a part of.”

“It is priceless to help others,” she said tearfully. “This has been a great opportunity to help. We know God put this all together for us to help this family. … You know it is a God thing when it all comes together and … you have blessed someone. I’ve been blessed, and … I know all those involved will be blessed.”

Hundreds of spectators, volunteers and the football team and cheerleaders from the University of Central Arkansas were there for the home’s unveiling.

The looks on the Collinses’ faces when the home was revealed were “worth all the hard work,” Carroll, their pastor, said. “One of the children said, ‘Wow, we won’t have to share a room now.’

“This family has gone through so much with Mitch and his ordeal, and then they took … in all these children and gave them a loving and secure home. They are well deserving of this new home,” Carroll said.

The new home was one of several surprises the family received when they returned to Murfreesboro, he noted. During the unveiling festivities, University of Central Arkansas officials presented each of the six children with college scholarships. Two other colleges, Carroll said, have since offered similar college opportunities for the children, as well as for Dennis, Kim and their adult son, Zach.

Another donor paid off Dennis’ truck loan, and a local repair shop overhauled the vehicle, Carroll said.

“It has just been an amazing time for them,” he added.

The show airs Sunday nights on ABC. The Collins family edition of the show is set to premiere April 22.