Good Morning Ward Family!

Having cast the adversity of her health and surroundings aside to run a nonprofit youth development and family center from her Erie home, Clara Ward and her family have been chosen to receive an extreme home makeover from ABC’s “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.” Erie builder John Maleno and his team from Maleno Development, the television show’s team leader Ty Pennington, Ty’s designers and hundreds of volunteers will rebuild Clara’s home in a mere seven days, enabling her to continue her incredible work supporting her neighborhood’s underprivileged children.

Having experienced a childhood of hardship, Clara vowed to make a difference for the next generation. Neither modest means nor the challenges of Myasthenia Gravis, a degenerative muscular disease, have stopped her so far. For decades, Clara has put her personal needs second to feeding, clothing and nurturing children in her home, organizing charitable drives, arranging field trips, tutoring, giving cooking lessons and much more.

But the rampant disrepair of her crumbling two-story home -- including a cracked foundation, a leaky roof, peeling walls and a faulty sewage line -- increasingly threatens the lifelong mission that means so much to Clara and those in her neighborhood. Furthermore, the house lacks the wheelchair accessibility she needs, requiring her to stay with her daughter and head back and forth each day.

While the “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” team, Erie’s Maleno Development, workers and volunteers rebuild Clara’s home, the Ward family will go on vacation to Walt Disney World.

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