Stewart Title Helps to Honor America’s Finest

Extreme Makeover: Home Edition is known for changing the lives of everyday Americans and pulling on a heartstring or two. The December 17 airing of the show will be no different.

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In mid-December the show will honor retired U.S. Army Staff Sergeant Shilo Harris for his brave work overseas fighting for his country. While in Iraq, Harris was severely injured when an explosive device hit the truck he was in and burned more than 40 percent of his body. He has had numerous painful surgeries to help him return to normal, but he still has trouble regulating his body temperature and difficulty breathing. It was hard for him to recover his injuries when he returned home because he returned to the mobile trailer he shared with his wife and children.

Something had to be done and the people at ""Stewart Title Guaranty Company"":http://www.stewart.com/ thought they were just the right people to do it. Harris' feature on the show came about through the philanthropic arm of Stewart Title Guaranty Company. The company reached out to its more than 1,900 associates to see if they would be willing to chip in to make this veteran's life more comfortable. The goal was modest in nature--$35,000 towards renovating a home equipped with the necessities to make a recovery possible--they raised $42,000 for Harris' home. The company hosted a fundraiser, which raised more than $1.1 million and used portion of the funds to pay off the Harris family mortgage and support 10 additional homebuilding projects.

""Stewart Title is proud to have worked side-by-side with our network of independent title agencies, Extreme Makeover: Home Edition and HelpingaHero.org to help support our wounded veterans who have given so much to this country,"" said George Houghton, Stewart's group president, agency operations in a statement. ""It's always rewarding to help families get into their adapted dream homes, and it was especially so in this case as evidenced by the tremendous outpouring of support from our independent agencies who were inspired by our heroes.""