New Home Revealed to Washington Family

By Doug Warner, NEWS 9

WASHINGTON, Oklahoma -- It started out simple enough - as a Bible study fundraiser for a family in need in the McClain County town of Washington. However six months later, the result was a made-for-TV complete home makeover.

More on News9.com: Watch the reveal of the new home

If Ty Pennington only knew what he was missing; dozens of Washington faithful volunteers and first responders woke early to watch faith in action.

"I knew that it was going to happen, I never had a doubt, my faith is that strong," volunteer coordinator Charlotte Singletary said.

Family and friends credit faith for helping 16-year-old Leah Hayes make it through a lifetime of unwelcomed seizures and most recently, brain surgery.

"It's just a miracle, answer to God's prayer watching over them and taking care of them," family member Cassie Hayes said.

And the miracle part of this: how the small community of Washington decided to take the Hayes' family home and update it just a bit. While Leah recovered from surgery, their home was leveled and NEWS 9 hit the airwaves asking for help.

And so it went for nearly six months; they asked and they received.

"I can't believe it, so pretty," Leah's mother Betty Hayes said. "This isn't our house."

For the first time Betty and Leah laid their teary eyes on their new, 'healthy' home built by neighbors, by the high school music teacher and by dozens of others who, for at least one day, made Leah forget all about her world of seizures and surgeries.

"I thought my gift was to keep getting her back every time something happened to her, and then you give me this gift," Betty Hayes said.

That little Bible study offering eventually spilled over into $25,000 in donations with over two dozen businesses donating their labor and supplies and furnishings.