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Producers of an ABC television show are hoping to make a dream come true for a Bryan-College Station family.
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is looking for an area family to help during the show's seventh season.
"What we're looking for is a family where there's no question about whether they're deserving," said Stephen Pleadwell, casting producer for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition. "What we're really looking for is a family where an entire community -- an entire nation -- can get behind them."
The show chooses a family in need, sends its members on vacation and transforms their home.
The last time the show came to the Brazos Valley was in December 2005. Then, the DeAeth family of Washington County was selected for a makeover, in part because of its dedication to True Blue Animal Rescue.
Finding a family in need this time around shouldn't be too difficult, officials said.
"If you think in terms of there are over 4,000 substandard houses that people are living in right in Bryan-College Station, that kind of speaks for itself," said Hank Roraback, president of the United Way of the Brazos Valley. "There's a lot of poverty and a lot of need behind the scenes that you just don't hear about."
Residents have until Monday to nominate a family in need or apply for the makeover themselves.
Project Unity founder and President Jeannie McGuire said she personally sent the e-mail about the search for a deserving family to 150 people, who then sent it on to others.
"I've never seen anything like it," she said. "It's just amazing how we all want to find that one family that's deserving of the makeover. I've never seen so many e-mails go back and forth like this."
Eligible families must own their own single-family homes, and casting producers are looking, in particular, for families that put aside their own needs to help others.
"We certainly try to find heroes," Pleadwell said. "We know too often that means in the literal sense of rescuing someone from a burning building. But we know, too, that heroes can be people in the community who rally others around a common cause."
So far, he said, applications have trickled in. That tends to be the case though, until the deadline hits.
Those interested in applying or nominating a family should send a brief e-mail to casttexas@gmail.com. The names and ages of those in the home, major problems facing the home and reasons why the family is deserving should be included in the e-mail, along with contact phone numbers.
"People are certainly welcome to send us a 10-page novel, but it doesn't necessarily improve their case," Pleadwell said. "Just send in the nuts and bolts, and we'll contact the families we think would make for a viable story."
McGuire said that by the end of the day Wednesday, she'd received some promising e-mails about families in need.
"In our community, we have tremendous need," she said. "But, on the opposite end of that, we have a lot of public servants in our community that answer the call, that step up to the plate. We've got thousands of families in need, but we want to find the person who has given of their time, their heart and is still in need."
