Designing Spaces of Hope Project in the Huffington Post
South Florida Community Comes Together to Give a Local Family a New Home Just in Time for Valentines Day
It’s a sad story with a happy ending in the making, for Joy Stewart and her grandchildren. One day in December, Broward County Sheriff’s Office Deputy Edward Ragauskas went to Detective Lisa Sokol for help. He had found Joy Stewart living in a home with no heat, running water, electricity or food with her four grandchildren. Grandchildren who had health issues due to being born to a drug addicted mother who had abandoned them in New York.
Detective Sokol and Deputy Ragauskas put out a call for help to their fellow Broward County Sherriff’s Deputies and the word quickly spread. Food, clothes and toys were donated; money was collected to turn utilities back on. Huge name national stores such as Wal-Mart, Brand Smart and Home Depot donated things like a water heater, refrigerator, food, clothes and toys. A very Merry Christmas for sure; however the state of the home the family was living in was not fit for habitation and as the holiday spirit of charity started to dwindle, the good deputies of the BSO were at a loss what to do next.
At that time the local branch of the national non-for-profit Rebuilding Together® stepped in and with them they brought the producers of the locally produced national hit home improvement show Designing Spaces™, airing on Lifetime. After taking one look at the state of Stewart’s family dwelling, the Dream Team at Designing Spaces decided to tackle the single largest makeover they have to date. With the help of Rebuilding Together, the Broward County Sherriff’s Office and the local emergency shelter Kids In Distress, where Joy’s grandchildren had been housed until she was able to bring them home, Designing Spaces is redoing and furnishing the entire house room by room.
With help from national sponsers like Tuesday Morning, the teams worked for 2 weeks and ended up with amazing results! The live reveal was Thursday February 14th and got the attention of local papers, news crews and then The Huffington Post Miami!
Sun-Sentinel Story
CBS Miami 4 Coverage
Huffington Post Miami
What started off as a sad story ended on a happy note of love by showing that magic that can occur when a community comes together and helps to create Joy.
Media Inquries:
Amanda Dugan
Director of Public Relations
Designing Spaces
adugan@o2mediainc.com
954-691-1102 Ext. 102
t. @PRShutterbug
About Designing Spaces™
Entering its 10th year Designing Spaces™ continues to be one of America’s favorite home improvement shows. The show inspires viewers on decorating ideas, do-it-yourself projects and step by step home improvements to help make every space count and provide solutions to help you enjoy the space you live, work and play in. Designing Spaces™ Family of Spaces includes Think Green Spaces, Kids Space, Pet Spaces and it’s widely popular Spaces of Hope which prides itself on assisting people and places in dire need of a makeover including children’s shelters, animal shelters, military families and more. Designing Spaces™ airs at 7:30am (ET/PT) on Lifetime.
For information or to view a show visit http://www.designingspaces.tv
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