The Kansas City Star March 18, 2007
By Eric Adler

Home is nearly ready for reveal
Northland family today will see surprise from “Extreme Makeover” and 1,600 workers.

By late this afternoon, the Jacobo family should be one extremely happy family.
“They’re going to be amazed,” said Lacey Czerwonka, 21, standing in the doorway of her home across the street from a lot that, less than one week ago, had a 912-square-foot cottage that was so cramped some of the 12 family members – three adults and nine children – slept in the hallway.

By Saturday afternoon, the approximately 1,600 workers who had toiled around the clock since Tuesday as part of the ABC television program “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition,” had replaced the tiny house at 4132 N. Spruce Ave. with a 5,100-square-foot home that is all but a mansion.

“They deserve it,” Czerwonka said.

Six bedroom. Six bathrooms. A gabled designer home with gleaming copper gutters. An interior filled with tens of thousands of dollars of appliances and furniture, decorations and even clothes.

Jesus and Michelle Jacobo, Michelle’s father and the couple’s nine children – includeing five nieces and nephews that the Jacobos took in to keep them out of foster care – are to be brought to their new home sometime between noon and 4 p.m. today.

The Jacobos have been in Florida since Tuesday on an all-expense–paid vacation.

Gary Brown, project manager for Lock and Key Productions, which produces the show for ABC, predicted that decorating would continue well into Saturday night.

Volunteers from Missouri Western State University – which has offered all nine Jacobo children four-year, full ride college scholarships – marched in Kansas City’s St. Patrick’s Day parade and collected money to help pay off the mortgage on the old, demolished home.

“Believe it or not, there’s so much (money) we won’t be able to count it until Monday,” Tony Libra, a spokesman for Kevin Green Homes, the general contractor, said Saturday. “We have to take it to the bank.”

Friday night and early Saturday morning, crews installed hardwood floors, wrought iron railings, a stone retaining wall and a privacy fence and planted a 15-foot maple tree. Electricians and plumbers came and went all night long.

“This guy worked 80 hours a week to support a family of 11, said Mark Lister, 37, the senior superintendent for Kevin Green Homes. “This is the least we can do, and we can feel good about it.”