BILLINGS - A Billings family is getting ready to head out on an unexpected vacation, and when they get back, they will have a brand new home.
They got quite a wake-up call Saturday morning from Ty Pennington and the gang from ABC's Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.
"This family is the first family that extreme makeover has ever had worldwide nominations for," said Steve Baillie, Jeff Junkert Construction.
The lives of the Carter family are about to change significantly, in a good way. They are recipients of a home makeover; news they were surprised with Saturday morning by the film crew.
"We have hundreds, maybe even thousands of people backing this in the construction and trade industry," said Jeff Junkert, whose construction company, Junker Construction, will be doing the building. "From subs to suppliers, the community involvement that has happened in the last few weeks, it's just absolutely outstanding."
The Carters are struggling with $500,000 worth of medical bills. Mother, Julie, eldest daughter, and possibly the other two girls, have a rare disease called Chiari Malformation, which affects the base of the brain and can cause paralysis. Also, for more than two decades, Julie has reached out and educated thousands worldwide about the disease.
"There's people who don't know that they're suffering from this disease and because of this show, when it airs, they're going to go, 'oh my gosh, I have that,'" said Michael Moloney, show designer.
Limited resources have kept the family living in this refurbished chicken coop with cracked windows and buckling walls, but not for long.
"We're going to install certain rail systems that they can later on be able to grab on to, you know, navigate their way through the house much easier as their illness progresses," said John Littlefield.
Come Monday morning, their house will be completely demolished and a new one put up in one week, just north of the old one.
If you are interested in volunteering, please visit www.kulr8.com and click on connections.