Click here to see a photo gallery.



BUNKER HILL — Anita Knepp and Tammy Ward stood in a tent on the south end of a harvested farm field in rural Miami County.

A line of people signed their names to papers and handed them over to one of Knepp and Ward’s helpers. In exchange for the paperwork, the people received blue T-shirts labeled with “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.”

“I’m on my seventh cup of coffee,” Ward said Thursday afternoon. “I had five this morning. ... I need a massage.”

“Extreme Makeover” star Ty Pennington and the rest of the show’s team surprised the Cowan-Brown family Wednesday morning with news that ABC was going to build them a new home.

The show selected the family because 12-year-old daughter Kori has a congenital blood disease. During her frequent trips to Riley Hospital for Children, she befriended a girl with cancer. Since then, Kori has raised more than $35,000 for the American Cancer society.

While the Cowan-Browns spent their first day at Disneyland in California, Knepp and Ward were getting assignments going for the volunteers.

It was a slower part of the day Thursday afternoon for the two women, who are in charge of organizing the non-skilled volunteers for the project.

So many people signed up to volunteer, Knepp said, that Hallmark Homes Inc., the general contractor working with ABC, has had to cut off applications.

“I made the decision I was going to answer every e-mail that came to me,” she said. “... I later thought, ‘That was dumb.’”

About 450 people will work at the construction site during the project, which will go through Monday, with the revealing of the house to the family on Tuesday, Knepp said. There were about 550 shifts available, but many people signed up for multiple shifts.

There were about 70 more volunteers than needed, Knepp said.

Instead of having extra people stand around with nothing to do, she said, she sent them to Kokomo to help clients with other organizations, including Samaritan Caregivers and the city’s domestic violence shelter and family services building. Volunteers are also helping with other people and families in need who aren’t affiliated with one of the organizations.

The people who came in to Kokomo to help spent their shifts doing yard work, house repairs and other simple tasks for people who needed the help.

Ward said some of the volunteers were disappointed to be sent elsewhere, but helping others was what mattered.

“Some, they’re more fame than they are glory,” she said. “We’d like volunteers to come and go to an elderly neighbor’s house, and do it all for Kori.”

Knepp said she was looking for other ways to use volunteers during the rest of the project because of the overwhelming amount of them.

“We have some cheerleaders coming in,” she said. “We don’t need anyone else to hand out food. So I thought, ‘OK, they can cheer on everyone.’”

Dozens of volunteers, skilled and unskilled, were on site Thursday awaiting orders.

Volunteer Darrell Toney said he left his home in Fillmore at 4:30 a.m. Thursday and drove two hours to be at the house to help out.

As he watched demolition equipment tear down the Cowan-Brown family’s house, he said he was looking forward to spending the project’s entirety volunteering.

“I brought my van,” he said. “I’m just going to sleep in my van if it works out.”

The skilled volunteers spent most of the day Thursday demolishing the house after wrecking crews went to work late in the morning.

While the power shovels scooped up the debris of the former-barn house, the non-skilled volunteers spent the day assembling tents, handing out food and other simple chores.

Volunteers Jessie Ewing, Brock White, Sheila Westendorf, Diana Evans and Liz Winters said the best part of the day was filming with Pennington and guest star Xzibit before the demolition.

The group said it took four takes of filming before ABC had what it needed.

“Ty kept laughing every time he walked out,” White said.

“He was fatigued,” Westendorf added.

• Daniel Human is a Kokomo Tribune staff writer. He can be reached at 765-454-8570 or at daniel.human@kokomotribune.com.