By Danielle Ellis
You may well be familiar with the TV show “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” That’s the one with Ty Pennington, where they send a family on vacation for seven days, demolish their home and build a new dream home to suit their needs by the time they return.

The show came to Las Vegas in March to build a new home for a family with daughters with Combined Immune Deficiency. The girls have no immune system, and so they must be in a sterile environment and have extensive medical care in order to stay alive. The Extreme Makeover: Home Edition team came to provide them with a home that would help them survive and thrive.

But with as many as half of the contractors, trademan and 3200 volunteers being members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, the event took on a new dimension above and beyond the normal scope of home building.

Wright Custom Home and Wright Engineers, the general contractor for the job, is owned by members of the Church. Brent Wright, Daniel Bartlett, Jeff Lehr, Ringo Quintanar and Dennis Bunker had a meeting when they were approached by ABC to build the house. “We decided we wanted this to be a special project,” said Brent Wright.

“We wanted to make this a missionary opportunity.” So they asked that there would be no profanity on the job site; people distributed pass-along cards; the missionaries from the Nevada Las Vegas West Mission came with blue project shirts and their name tags; Boy Scouts were called in to clean the neighborhood after the project was finished; the ward Relief Society in which the home is located came to do the final cleaning, and more.

This huge effort was noticed and appreciated. “We got lots of comments from people,” continued Wright, “about how the people were so nice, how well everyone worked together, and what a good atmosphere there was.”

“This project was actually an answer to prayer for me and my family,” said Daniel Bartlett. The economy is so bad, and home building in particular has been hard-hit. 2008 was a hard year for us. So we were praying for a service opportunity that would help us to reach out in a difficult time.”

It was shortly before Christmas that the call came from ABC. Wright was chosen by the network because they had done engineering work on another home built by the show four years ago. After being selected as the general contractor, they quickly filled out their team with other contractors and subcontractors in the valley they have worked with previously. Many of those were also owned by members of the Church.
“The Church was well represented on this project,” said Wright.

“We were so amazed that even in a bad economy people jumped in without exception to help,” continued Wright. “People’s hearts were in a good place because we were there to do something good with no thought of reward.” One great thing about this project is that we were able to do something to help save the lives of those little girls,” said Bartlett.

“The gift of a new house to that family was incidental,” said Dennis Bunker, one of the project managers. “I saw tradesmen and company principals come together and bond who had disliked each other before. I saw people learn to work together in a new way. I saw people realize how much one tradesman needs another to make his own work go well. I saw people respecting each other’s work in ways that are not typical on job sites.”

All the men could not speak highly enough of the level of sacrifice, commitment and dedication that made the project a success. “People spent a huge amount of time at their own cost. I saw concrete guys work 24 hours straight, framers work 28 hours, sheetrock hangers 18 hours, wallcovering people work 17 hours. I saw women work night shifts so they could participate in some meaningful way,” said Dennis Bunker.

As a final gift, the Wright Custom Home and Wright Engineers Team gave the family a Book of Mormon with the family’s name embossed on it, and wrote their testimonies and a note inside. “People’s perception is that this is a terrible place. People don’t realize how many good people are here,” said Wright. “This project was not just a gift to the family, this was a gift to all of us. Being part of a project like this is a once-in-a-lifetime thing,” said Ringo Quintanar. “I’m glad I got to be a part of it.