"It was the true story of how small-town people really do know their neighbors and really will do anything for them. And it played beautifully on TV on a Sunday night in spring of 2006. Three years later, it's a test of the meaning of generosity and, maybe, its limits." That's how Amy Wilson of the Lexington Herald-Leader begins her story today about a Kentucky family, saddled with debt and illness, selling the house it got from the generosity of neighbors and ABC-TV's "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition." (Herald-Leader photo by David Stephenson)The controversy went public with publication of a story in The Cynthiana Democrat, which noted said the family wanted to be closer to its doctors in Lexington and would not be the first "Extreme Makeover" homeowners to sell the house they had been given. That prompted a letter to the Landmark Community Newspapers weekly, calling the events "a disgrace and a humiliation to this community" and telling the family to rely on God to provide health-related transportation from their isolated home.
That prompted several letters defending the family, and the paper's longtime editor, Becky Barnes, weighed in on the family's side in an editorial: "Whether the Hassalls choose to sell their home or remain in it and struggle day to day is entirely up to them. In their time of need, they were given a gift. That gift didn’t come with stipulations. That gift may still be the answer to their prayers. Not one of us knows God’s plan and this just might have been it all along." (Read more)
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