By Daniel Human
CNHI News Service
KOKOMO — Having almost 10,000 sticky notes on your bedroom walls may sound like a mess, but when Ty Pennington creates a wall mosaic from them, it works.
The Cowan-Brown family members returned glances and grins at one another Sunday evening as they watched the star of “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” spoof 12-year-old Kori Brown’s organization technique on the show.
The general public got its first glimpse inside the rural Miami County family’s new home since hundreds of volunteers, led by Anderson-based Hallmark Homes Inc., spent a week in late October building the house.
Hundreds from a select guest list crowded the auditorium at First Church of the Nazarene to watch the airing of the ABC-TV reality show.
“Oohs” and “aahs” softly emerged around the auditorium as the show’s cameras took their nationwide audiences on a tour of the custom home.
The show focused on Kori, her charity work and her illness. Kori has a congenital blood disease, which has caused her to make frequent trips to Indianapolis for treatment. During her trips, she befriended Alyssa Lewandowski, who was undergoing leukemia treatment. Since becoming friends, Kori has raised tens of thousands of dollars for the American Cancer Society in her friend’s honor.
The show also portrayed the family’s battle with their mold-ridden home, which at one time was a barn.
While Pennington took viewers through the medical complications the mold caused for the six-member family, sympathetic gasps periodically surfaced in the church’s auditorium.
On the show, Heather Cowan, Kori’s mother, described the house as being “a cancer for our family that was eating our family alive.”
But the show wasn’t all serious.
Along with guest star Xzibit’s comedic interjections throughout the episode, question-and-answer sessions with the Cowan-Brown family led to background stories about the project. Many of the anecdotes caused the audience to laugh as the family remembered the experience.
The Hallmark Homes executives cracked jokes about the show glossing over the rain that disrupted work and created less than favorable conditions.
“It’s just how I remembered,” Hallmark Homes President Paul Schwinghammer said sarcastically as he remembered the flooding and ankle-deep mud during the construction.
After the show ended, Hallmark Homes presented the family with a $20,000 check. It was part of a round of gifts they have received along with the house, including $50,000 for the family to pay off some of their medical bills and other expenses and another $50,000 for Kori to begin her iroK Foundation.
Kori and Heather introduced iroK’s first recipient family Sunday: Theresa Breeden and her children.
The foundation selected the family because of Breeden’s daughter, Cheyenne Carrico, with whom Kori attended camp. Cheyenne had a brain tumor removed when she was 5 years old, causing her to become blind and have other medical-related complications.
The new foundation aims to help families burdened by medical expenses endure day-to-day costs.
“There’s still football practices; there’s still dance recitals,” Cowan said. “There’s still life.”
Outside the auditorium, the church’s atrium housed an expo featuring the charity projects Kori has worked on.
Jennifer Schnurpel, Kori’s fifth-grade teacher, stood in front of a poster board featuring newspaper articles about her former student’s charity work as well as some of the examples of the projects she did in school.
Schnurpel said her students, most of whom had no idea who Kori was until recently, have continued one of the projects she began last year. The class used string and beads to make 1,200 solar bracelets, which raised $200.
Later in the evening, the church audience saw Kori present Pennington with one of the bracelets on the show.
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