Leesport mom Jaime Noll and her daughters Samantha, 14, and Aubrey, 9, pulled up in front of their home in a white limo on Sept. 16 for the Big Reveal after a one-week home makeover.
Noll is this year’s winner of the seventh annual Home Builders Association Restoring Hope Foundation Build. From Sept. 7 through Sept. 15, hundreds of volunteers repaired and remodeled the two-story townhouse, including new heating system, new roof, and new kitchen.
Noll and her daughters were all smiles as they walked up to their front door, greeted by a small crowd out on the front lawn, cheering and shouting. After pictures were taken with previous home makeover winners, family, friends and Foundation Board members, Noll said, “I’m extremely overwhelmed and nervous and excited.”
“Happy,” added Samantha with a big smile.
“This is gorgeous, it’s amazing,” said Noll.
Noll thanked the Restoring Hope Foundation.
“There are not words to describe how we feel and to thank them enough for everything they have done and for all of the volunteers, all the help and we’re just extremely thankful and hopefully we pay it back,” said Noll.
During the Big Reveal on Sept. 16, family, friends, community members and Restoring Hope Foundation Board members had the opportunity to tour the home to see first-hand the work completed by the volunteers and to welcome the family home.
Noll is a single mom and full-time clerk at the welfare office, taking classes to earn a degree with the goal of becoming a caseworker. She purchased the small townhouse in Leesport and had been slowly making repairs as finances allowed when she applied for the home makeover.
When asked why this family was chosen from the many applications the Foundation received, Restoring Hope Foundation chair Diane Salks said, “Jaime is a hard-working mother of two girls. She tries to show her girls the value of hard work by working while attending classes. We hope that we can help her by taking the burden of fixing up her home off of her hectic schedule.”
The mission of the HBA Restoring Hope Foundation is “to construct solutions to address unique challenges of deserving people in Berks County,” and its goal is to help restore the lives of middle-income working families who have fallen on tough times, and its focus is on giving a “hand up, not a hand out.”
“Remember, we are about helping middle-class working families. I think that sometimes people think that we are here to only help low-income and that just isn’t the case,” said Salks.
Among the volunteers to help with the project were Kert Sloan, vice president of the Pennsylvania Builders Association which is the mother group of the Home Builders Association. He is three-time past president of the local chapter of HBA. Sloan has helped with the HBA Restoring Hope Foundation Build for the past seven years.
“On this project, I did a little bit of everything,” he said. “Helped out with windows, with doors, with decking, and helped out whereever needed.”
This year’s Build Chair is Larry Kehres of L.A. Kehres Building & Remodeling, Inc. in Leesport.
“We go way beyond,” said Sloan. “What happens is you have all these trades working together and we see something’s wrong, we fix it. This had new heater, new air conditioning, new roof, all new flooring, some of the walls were completely redone with new drywall, walls were torn out. There’s a brand new kitchen, new deck out front and everything in the backyard you see we did. The kids from vo-tech built the shed. Riverview Nursery did all of the landscaping but other landscapers helped.”
Contractors from local companies, too numerous to name, volunteered on the project. Supplies, materials and new furniture were all donated.
“We’re helping somebody in need. It’s Americans helping Americans and that’s the way it should be,” said Sloan. “It’s helping out somebody in your community.”
Dawn Wivell, RHF Marketing Co-Chair, said HBA Restoring Hope Foundation is already accepting applications for next year’s home makeover. To apply or for more information, visit http://hbarestoringhope.org or follow on Facebook.
