A Warren native helps make a family's dream home a reality on the next episode of ''Extreme Makeover Home Edition.''
The episode, which will be broadcast at 8 p.m. today on ABC-TV, focuses on a home built in Lincolnton, N.C., for the Friday family. Devonda and James Friday have been foster parents to more than 30 children, and they adopted one of those foster children and his four siblings in 2011. In their old home, they were forced to turn the carport of their small ranch-style house into two makeshift bedrooms to accommodate the additions to their family.
The construction of their new home by ''Extreme Makeover'' was coordinated by Bellamy Homes, a Charlotte, N.C., building company owned by Frank Hereda and Wade Miller. Hereda, 36, was born in Warren and lived here until his parents, Dan and Dianna (DiCenso) Hereda, moved to Indiana when he was about 10 years old.
''Wade and I are big into charity,'' Hereda said. ''We do other things in the Charlotte area, and that's what drew us to it. Just the size of this and the opportunity to give back in such a large way.''
Bellamy Homes first approached the producers of ''Extreme Home Makeover'' at an international builders convention about three years ago. They didn't hear anything the first year, but they approached the producers the following year at the convention, and they still had the business card on file.
For most of 2011, they were in touch with the television show, Hereda said, but they weren't allowed to tell anyone. In late October 2011, they got confirmation of a North Carolina project and only had about four weeks to coordinate everything before the work was started in December 2011.
In four days with the help of thousands of volunteers, a 3,900-square-foot home was built for the Fridays.
''The biggest challenge was getting everyone organized in such a short period of time, especially during the holiday season,'' Hereda said.
He's proud of the home they were able to give the family, but they also raised enough money to guarantee the family's eight children full-ride scholarships to Belmont Abbey College in North Carolina.
''Adults are set in what they're going to do in life, but you can make a difference with children,'' he said. ''The ripple effect is huge on that.''
When Hereda was visiting his parents, who now live in Hudson, over Thanksgiving, he brought a DVD with excerpts of his interview and other raw footage from the episode. Rosemarie DiCenso, his grandmother who still lives in Warren, said it was amazing getting to watch the excerpts, and she is looking forward to watching the full episode with her grandson.