Extreme Community Take Over

As all are very aware the Buffalo, New York edition of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition aired on television network ABC Sunday night. It was the talk of the town back in November when they started filming and has just been revived due to its airing. Hundreds of Buffalonians tuned in to witness what their city was portrayed like for a national audience. I had a chance to watch a good majority of the show as I was at my mother's house and she wouldn't let me keep the NFC Championship game on. The community was shaken up by this a bit as there were some points pointed out by a number of cynics, skeptics and critics alike.

If anyone has heard or watched this show before you're aware of their routine. You have to keep in mind that it is on television and television does not exactly portray reality to the most honest degree. This show is scripted and edited to be overly dramatic and to tug at its viewers heartstrings. People like to watch it for that reason, they like to be entertained with the notions of an extreme omni-good non-conflicted world. Which is fine, I'm all about charity and helping out. The show did its job and showed Buffalo in a light that looked really good and I'm sure people who watched this in Arkansas thought "Wow, what a great group of people they have der in Buffalo." Which I completely agree with, we have an excellent community, strong and faithful to fellow neighbors.

Here's how the episode went, Delores Powell moved here from Jamaica for a better life with her family. She purchased a house on Buffalo's west side for twelve thousand dollars not realizing it was falling in on itself. Delores soon found out that the house was on the demolition list and was soon to be knocked down. She tried contacting the seller, he fled the city, she was stuck twelve thousand dollars gone and no money to bring the house up to code to save it. The house was a mess, the foundation was crumbling, no hot water, no sink in the bathroom and holes in the floor. This is the kind of stuff the people at Extreme Makeover crave. It's no wonder they chose to come to Buffalo and completely 'change the lives' of this family.

In this particular episode the Extreme Makeover team decided to not only build this family a new home but fix up the neighboring houses and clean up the block. They repainted, built new porches, cleaned up the yards and gardens for the neighbors. A record breaking amount of volunteers showed up for this cause to help out their neighbors on Buffalo's west side. A big question that raises from this is, where are all of these volunteers now? Or even where were all of them before? Now that the television cameras left, so have they. It seems as if just because a national television show comes to Buffalo everyone just jumps on the bandwagon to help out. Why aren't these people still giving up their time to make an extra change and effort in this city? Television cameras seem to have an intoxicating effect on people and they'll do anything as long as they're recognized by a larger number of people. If this wasn't a national show and something on public access, I guarantee that amount of people would not show up to help Buffalo's west side. Granted though you need to take into consideration that the Extreme Makeover team definitely has a lot more publicity and recognition than someone with a public access show. A lot more funding for promotion to get the word out about the project. As I said before though, television doesn't portray reality to the most honest degree and in reality we don't have that many people to spend their time and energy to reconstruct the whole city.

Perhaps the most scandalous part of this episode was Canisius College's "generous donation" of a full scholarship to everyone in the family, all six of them even the mother. At the beginning of this episode I did think to myself that the kids in this family were pretty ambitious, with one mentioning he wanted to be an architect and one of his sisters saying she wanted to be a lawyer. But, doesn't anyone think that it's a little much to give? Canisius is not a cheap school to attend and probably one of the better schools around to get your education. And they just give it to this family for nothing? Sure that's great and very generous but doesn't it question the integrity of their educational system? Education should be more of a quest and challenge. What if these kids aren't even smart enough to get into the school and take the classes there? They should have offered something a little less and had them work for the rest, more of a boost to start their education and not a free ride.

I took a drive down Massachusetts street today just to check it out. I noticed the house, but almost drove by it. The extreme team definitely did a good job making that street look completely different on screen. I couldn't tell where it was driving up through it. It's still the same old west side only with a newer looking house on the block. There's still a little bodega on the corner with some hoodlums hanging around outside and trash blowing around in the street. You really have to wonder if all the effort will prove worth it. Will the Powell's keep up with the maintenance? Or will the weight of the surrounding neighborhood force it to crumble again over the years? Regardless, it is fun when Buffalo has the spotlight shined on them for something other than our sports teams or scandal. Everyone in the community gets a little giddy because of the pride we carry and if you say you don't, you're lying. Maybe this will get people more involved with community efforts, but they did do this back in November and since then I haven't heard or seen any efforts or changes. It is the cold winter now so possibly when the sun starts to shine again and we have some milder temps? But I do doubt it, and only because so much time has passed and many people tend to move on to other ambitions. I am glad this city was shown as a good community, at least we had that despite the overly dramatic tendencies of the show. Or did it just look that way because of the editing?