For more information, contact
Marty Whitford
HUGE Heart Home Makeover
Organizer
440-823-7194
Adam & Ann Gaspar
216-389-9114
ann@gasparnet.com
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
HUGE Heart
Home Makeover:
Cleveland Edition
Help needed to give local Extreme
Makeover finalist
the home renovation the family needs and deserves
FAIRVIEW PARK, Ohio (Aug. 9, 2008) ─ Adam Gaspar stands 6-foot-eight, but his heart’s even bigger.
Over the past two decades, Adam has helped nearly a dozen other local families renovate their homes free of charge. Adam doesn’t regret for a moment his lifetime spent putting others first but he is, understandably so, a little worried for his close-knit clan these days.
Just a few days after last Thanksgiving, Adam was given a death sentence. A doctor informed the now-42-year-old father of six ages 21 to 11 that he has a glioblastoma multiforme grade IV brain tumor. The doctor gave Adam six to 12 months to live ─ and that was with brain surgery, chemotherapy and radiation treatments.
This Old House
“I always enjoyed helping others work on their homes. It
just never crossed my mind that
I wouldn’t have the time to work on our house. I guess it’s another case of the
cobbler’s kids having no shoes,” Adam said, sadly surveying his home in grave
disrepair.
The Gaspar house:
Extreme Makeover Finalist
In March, Marty Whitford, a longtime friend of Adam’s, and Pam Reid, a co-worker of Ann’s, tag teamed to nominate the family for Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EMHE). Quintin Strack, EMHE Casting Director, said Ohioans submitted more than 4,000 applications to EMHE.
After several rounds of cuts, EMHE selected 25 Ohio finalists for personal visits, Strack said. Just ½ of 1 percent of the Ohio applicants made the cut, but the Gaspars were among them.
After braving brain surgery and a rigorous chemotherapy and radiation regimen, Adam underwent his first MRI of the year early in the morning, April 21. When Adam and Ann returned that day from Metro Health Medical Center, where Ann works as a labor-and-delivery nurse, the couple was greeted by Strack and an EMHE camera man, both eager to capture the Gaspar’s heroic story on film.
The EMHE visit was no surprise. EMHE had called a week earlier and asked the Gaspars to all be home that morning. Nick, 21, took off work, and the other Gaspar children ─ Monika, 18, Juli and Gabi, 14, Emily, 12, and Adam Jr., 11 ─ skipped school that day.
The big surprise came a few days before EMHE’s visit, when Monika was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis (MS). The weekend before EMHE visited, Adam watched from his sickbed as his eldest daughter, preparing to graduate from Magnificat High School, sat rigged to IVs.
“God never gives you more than you can handle. I guess he thinks we’re strong,” Ann said.
Helping Hands Now Need Help
On July 9, EMHE’s Ty Pennington gave his wonderful bullhorn wake-up call to another of the Ohio finalists ─ the Akers family located in West Chester, a suburb of Cincinnati.
“Your story still warms my heart and I think of Adam and all of you often,” EMHE’s Strack wrote in a July 22 email to Ann. “I know you are waiting for an answer so you can make some big decisions and move forward. After building for the Akers in Cincinnati, the possibility of coming back to Ohio doesn’t look great.
“I know you have incredible friends and family who are lining up and waiting to be of assistance to your family and Adam,” Strack said. “If they’d like to make arrangements to fix your home on their own, I would encourage them to take matters into their own hands and no longer wait for us. Best wishes to you all and my prayers to Adam. I thank you for sharing your story with us, inviting us into your home and letting us be part of your family for that wonderful day.”
Whitford, who became buddies with Adam Gaspar in the first grade 35 years ago and is godfather of Monika and Gabi Gaspar, is organizing HUGE Heart Home Makeover to help make Adam’s last wish come true.
“It would really mean the world to me if somehow, some way, we could lift this huge burden ─ the disrepair of our home ─ off Ann’s shoulders,” Adam said. “She’ll have enough to handle with five of our six children still in school.”
Gaspar Makeover
HUGE Heart Home Makeover seeks commitments of time, talents and materials to make over the Gaspar house and yard.
Donations to the cause are tax deductible to the full extent of the law. Please call Marty Whitford at 440-823-7194 or email mfwhitford@aol.com today for more information on how you can help.
Please write checks to St. Angela Merici Church. Please note on the bottom left of the check: “For Gaspar Makeover.” Mail donations to:
St. Angela Merici Church
C/O Gaspar Makeover
20970 Lorain Road
Fairview Park, OH 44126
“Ann and Adam have been off work since Thanksgiving,” Whitford said. “We’re looking for help from corporate sponsors ─ for monies, materials and expertise ─ local builders, contractors, painters, landscapers, and any Average Joe who has time or monies to pitch in to our HUGE Heart Home Makeover. Let’s show everyone just how big Cleveland’s heart is. Let’s give the Gaspars a home that’s level with the ones their dear dad spent a lifetime helping build.”
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