Extreme Makeover: Home Edition
SFI brings show to the Nation’s Capital!
In August of 2009, Smith Fairfield, Inc. (SFI) oversaw and managed the Washington, D.C. builds for ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition! This was the show’s largest and most ambitious build ever – two homes totaling 10,000 square feet, located in different states, built in one week, and designed and built to be the most energy efficient homes in the show’s history.
Smith Fairfield contacted ABC’s production company about considering The Fishing School as a possible recipient. The Fishing School (TFS) is a non-profit after school program that provides underserved children and their families with academic and parental support services in Wards 6 and 7 in Washington, D.C. Smith Fairfield has been providing pro-bono marketing, branding, and event management services for The Fishing School since the summer of 2008.
Once ABC’s producers selected The Fishing School, Smith Fairfield, Inc. was put in charge of both builds! SFI immediately started the search for prominent and experienced builders, sub-contractors and businesses that would be willing to donate resources, including their valuable time, for this massive undertaking. “The public doesn’t realize that the success of the build is solely dependent upon the generosity of the community, which was particularly challenging given current economic conditions,” said Tim Burch, President of Burch Builders Group.
Smith Fairfield enthusiastically took on the task of coordinating the production of the Fishing School build in Washington, D.C. and a second build for the Tripp Family in Hyattsville, Maryland. One of the challenges was coordinating the thousands of volunteers and material good donations that would be needed for the builds. SFI was able to call on the United Way of the National Capital Area and its new CEO, Bill Hanbury, to accept the challenge and put his organization’s resources to work for the community.
“No one understood the magnitude of this project initially. We had to provide more than six thousand meals and coordinate over four thousand volunteers during a one-week period for two build sites. This was a massive undertaking,” said UWNCA CEO Bill Hanbury. “Smith Fairfield was the glue holding this project together. They volunteered their time and resources to facilitate all aspects of this project from coordinating with the builders to working with United Way and our volunteers to coordinating all the many logistical components of this massive effort. They are one of the many examples of a small business putting their lives on hold to benefit others in our community.”
Because of Smith Fairfield’s work with the Department of Energy creating and touring the “Living Zero Home Tour” (an energy-efficient traveling home that demonstrates how to be energy efficient and live near zero), SFI asked the DOE and Oak Ridge National Laboratories to work with the builders to build high performance, low-energy homes using DOE funded research technologies and on the shelf products that are currently available to consumers. As a result of this collaboration, these two homes are the most efficient buildings in the show’s seven year history!
Besides handling and overseeing all of the logistics, SFI handled the public relations and the media for all participating parties. SFI also used this opportunity to showcase the builds to Washington’s top policymakers and invited the Secretary of Energy, the Secretary of Education, the Secretary of Labor and Washington’s Mayor, Adrian Fenty, who all visited the school during the build.
The Fishing School and Tripp family builds aired Sunday February 14th 2010 with a two hour special on ABC.