TV show helps family finish dream home

Published 9:35 am Monday, January 22, 2007

CANTON (AP) — The new home in Lake Arrowhead was to replace the one destroyed by fire a few years ago. But costly medical bills from a car accident kept Faith Tipton-Smith’s family from finishing it.

But then a TV show — ABC-TV’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” stepped in, selecting Smith and her daugthers, Emily Smith, 8, and Missy Tipton, 16. Up to 5,000 volunteers helped make her family’s dream come true. The episode is expected to air in March.

“People came who I didn’t know, so it just goes to show how much love is in the community,” she said. “It’s a new start for me and my girls. It’s going to be a good 2007.”

Her family’s home was destroyed in a 2005 fire. Three months after construction began on their new home, her 16-year-old son, Ransom, and David Tipton of Cartersville, died of injuries suffered in a car accident. Ransom’s sister, Missy, also was injured.

Woodstock-based Oakwood Homes LLC and its building partners and RBC Centura Bank volunteered services, materials and money to complete the house. The bank and its sister companies donated $25,000 and led a fund-raising campaign to pay off the family’s nearly $145,000 mortgage.

“A community came out to really help Faith and her children,” said Tony Perry, CEO of Oakwood Homes. “It was just a genuinely unique experience to see everybody embrace what we were doing.”

In addition, a Ransom Tipton Memorial Scholarship Fund has been created at Reinhardt College. The first recipients will be Tipton-Smith’s daughters and Elaine Yurewich of Waleska, whose late son, Alex, also died in the car accident, and her daughter, Corinne.

“Not only will it benefit your two families, but it’s our desire at Reinhardt for this to be a fund that’s available to all families who have had their lives disrupted by tragedy,” said J. Thomas Isherwood, the president of the college.