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Christmas came a little early this year for Jimmie and Hazel Johnson.
The couple saw for the first time on Saturday their newly renovated home, on which 40 employees of a local contracting company worked, with help from the city of McKinney.
The Johnsons’ one-story home in the 800 block of Odell Street, east of the railroad tracks and State Highway 5, had major foundation, floor, roof, plumbing and electrical problems, and did not have a central heating/air conditioning unit. That all changed in the past three weeks, when employees of MYCON General Contractors of McKinney, along with the city’s Community Development Block Grant and Community Services department and Volunteer McKinney Center, steadily poured their energy, sweat and hearts into reconstructing the home.
The Johnsons’ home has a new foundation, plumbing, electrical system, roof, and flooring; a new central heating/air conditioning unit; gently used furniture; new bedding; new mattresses; new bathtubs; new bathroom sinks; new toilets; new kitchen appliances, including a dishwasher, which the Johnsons did not have; a concrete driveway to replace the old dirt driveway; new landscaping; and new, light yellow paint on the exterior of the home, which used to be white.
Mrs. Johnson had tears of joy in her eyes as she walked through her remodeled home on Saturday, and hugged and thanked everyone she met.
“I love it. I love it. I love it,” said the 75-year-old when asked what she thought of the work the volunteers did. “This is so nice.”
Mr. Johnson, 77, said he loved the way the house looked and was amazed to see the many changes in the home.
MYCON employees, city staffers and Volunteer McKinney staff members also gave money, which was used to purchase a turkey, vegetables and other items so the Johnsons could have a Christmas dinner.
Several gifts, including a grocery store gift card; baskets of soap; lotion and bath gel; a new Christmas tree adorned with new ornaments; and toys for the Johnson’s 11-year-old grandson, Kesean Johnson, to play with when he stays at his grandparents’ house, also were purchased by the many people who worked on the house. Numerous kitchen knickknacks and decorative items were bought and placed throughout the home.
Kesean’s mother, Mary Johnson of Allen, said the youngster wrote - but never mailed — a letter to the producers of ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” to see if his grandparent’s home could be renovated by the show’s designers and crew.
“I am just overwhelmed, excited and am just glad that my parents lived long enough to enjoy this. It’s amazing how you take the frame of a house and do wonders with it,” Mary Johnson said as she walked through her parents’ newly renovated home on Saturday. Her parents stayed at her home in Allen during the reconstruction and had not seen the renovated interior of the home until Saturday.
Kesean was very glad to see his grandparents’ home repaired.
“It’s good because their home didn’t look like this before. I like the furniture because it’s comfortable,” he said as he bounced up and down on a new mattress in the room in which he usually stays when he visits his grandparents.
The Johnsons first applied for a home rehabilitation grant from the CDBG office five years ago, but they did not qualify because the improvements at the home exceeded what was allowed by the rehabilitation grant, according to Shirletta Best, the CDBG administrator who helped to get the Johnsons’ reconstruction project started with the Volunteer McKinney Center.
If a family does not qualify for a home rehabilitation grant, the city puts the family into contact with the Volunteer McKinney Center through its Hearts Energized and Ready to Help ( HEARTH) home rehabilitation program, which was created by city grants coordinator Carolyn Sitton Lovell and Volunteer McKinney Center executive director Sheila Miller. The Johnson home is the 15th HEARTH home that the city and the Volunteer McKinney Center have completed.
“The city of McKinney made all of this happen, and MYCON has truly made this an extreme home makeover,” Miller said on Saturday.
Best said at the ribbon cutting that every dream starts with a vision, and that you have people, such as the volunteers and city staff, to carry out that vision.
“Here we are, standing here with so much joy in our little part of the world today. There are tears today, and they are tears of joy,” Best said as she congratulated the Johnsons, who recently celebrated their 53rd wedding anniversary. “This is the highlight of this partnership, such as having all the city and volunteer resources coming together. Seeing the joy in peoples’ faces lets us know that it’s all worth it. It’s the perfect home for the holidays vision, not only for the family but for the residents knowing how people can come together in the spirit of giving for those in need,” Best said.
MYCON was matched with the Johnsons to help them repair some items in their home. After MYCON volunteers began working, the rehabilitation project grew into a home reconstruction when more people wanted to donate their services and skills to help the Johnsons, according to Dana Walters, MYCON’s director of business development.
“We have 40 employees, and they donated their ideas, time and labor, and many donated food items. We’ve also purchased gift cards for the Johnsons to fill their pantry and refrigerator with food, and more than 30 of our suppliers donated their services,” Walters said.
The renovation of the Johnsons’ home was originally slated to begin in October, but after MYCON employees discovered the extensive damage in the home, they opted to do more for the Johnsons and chose to work on the project closer to Christmas.
“As we got involved, everybody’s heart went out to the Johnsons. When we were redoing the walls, we found mold in the walls, and we completely replaced the walls,” Walters said.
Brad Archer and Shannon Harcrow of MYCON served as the project managers of the reconstruction project. They attended Saturday’s event, as did many other MYCON employees. Sam Chavez, the director of the city’s community services department, where the CDBG office is housed, drove from his home in Carrollton to attend the event. Others in attendance included community services department manager Jennifer Cox, CDBG coordinator Christine Lawton and neighborhood services specialist Lincoln Thompson.
Cox said that before the reconstruction work, the Johnsons could not lock their front door because the door frame was damaged, a result of foundation shifting over the years. That problem has been remedied: The home is not lifted off the ground, the foundation has been repaired and the Johnsons can now lock all of their doors in their home, which should help them feel safer at night, Cox said.
Archer thought that so many people helped repair the Johnson’s home because they wanted to help a family in need during the holiday season, he said.
“Everybody can be sympathetic to their situation and I think so many people helped because of the time of the year. Everybody wants to help somebody during this time of year,” Archer said.
Harcrow believes that MYCON’s long relationships with its contractors and subcontractors helped turn the home rehabilitation into a home reconstruction project.
“It’s Christmas, and they wanted to help out. I wish we had a little more time to have worked on this, because we would have been able to get a lot more done. A lot of our contractors and subcontractors had commitments to Habitat for Humanity. It was amazing how everything came together at the end. Everyone really stepped up to the plate on this,” Harcrow said.
The following companies volunteered their skills, time, materials and money to the reconstruction of the Johnson’s home: MaXXum Heating and Cooling, Inc., K. Thompson Electric, United Lynn-Con, Drywall Interiors, LP, Blue Star Storage, Lowe’s Home Improvement, Barber Specialites, Pavecon Commercial Concrete, CBS Mechanical Services, Inc., Five Star Plumbing, GNS Electrical, Concept Construction Services, Triple Crown Roof and Coating, Chatham/Worth Specialites, inc., Sherman Door and Hardware, Republic Self Storage, Mesquite Mobile Power Wash, Lonestar Temporary Service, Manish Kapoor of Janitorial Systems, Inc., Mike Davis of Wiedenbach-Brown Co. Inc., the Bethlehem Christian Church, the St. James C.M.E. Church, McKinney Chamber of Commerce, LA Fitness, Peachtree Graphics, Nolan Entertainment, the Lewisville Promoting Resident Involvement, Development and Enthusiasm community, First Baptist Church on Drexel Street, and Artful Corporate Interiors.
The following city departments also assisted: building inspections, community services, code enforcement, geographic information systems, marketing and communications, permits, and the Old Settler’s Recreation Center.
Contact staff writer Brandi Hart at hartb@acnpapers.com. To post comments online, access this story at www.scntx.com.
