Volunteers love helping to build 'Extreme Makeover' house

VIRGINIA BEACH

Tyrone Mobley's job supervising a masonry crew for Atlantic Foundations usually has him at work around 7:30 a.m. and off around 4 in the afternoon.

But at 1 a.m. Tuesday, Mobley was shoveling dirt and rock in a 32-degree freeze, helping to prep the foundation installation of the home being built on Gentry Road for the ABC show "Extreme Makeover: Home Edition."

He and the dozens of men and women who were up during the night - without the attention of spectators and with the

celebrities all gone - were hustling to lay the groundwork for the home that Beverly Hill, husband Fred Burdette, and their six adopted daughters will receive through the hit program.

Mobley's ears were red from the cold early Tuesday, but he said it was a joy to work for free, especially because Hill is his wife's aunt.

"This is a blessing," Mobley said. "It really is. She deserves this. She is the most selfless person I know."

"Extreme Makeover: Home Edition" projects could not exist without volunteers, the show's executive producer, George Verschoor, said Tuesday afternoon.

More than 6,000 people have signed up for the project, which continues through the week, and that doesn't include the people and companies that have donated materials.

About 20 restaurants are taking turns preparing and serving food around the clock, sometimes for as many as 300 workers at a time. A Norfolk company is donating mattresses and box springs. People are taking time off work to hand out hard hats, set up barricades for crowd control and paint walls.

Verschoor said a community pep rally two weeks ago proved to him how committed local residents are.

"We had the biggest turnout of this season," he said. Season eight has had 15 episodes so far.

Jim Avery, vice president of Superior Walls of Central Virginia, is usually handling finance and sales in his office in Amelia, southwest of Richmond. His company donated the pre-cast, concrete foundation, and Avery drove down to help out however he could, with "no sleep but lots of coffee."

"To get all the contractors working together for a common goal, that's always great," he said.

During a break, Mobley, who lives 10 minutes from the site, surveyed the workers and said he'd talk to Hill about one day inviting the volunteers to the new house for a thank-you meal.

"It means a lot that they are doing this for her."

Denise Watson Batts, (757) 446-2504, denise.batts@pilotonline.com