Although the Vitales face a most challenging future, the family now has a strong foundation on which to build—thanks to their new home in Athens, Vt.

Before the design team of ABC’s Extreme Makeover: Home Edition stepped in to help, Sara and Lou Vitale and their two sons, Kane, 3, and Louie Angelo Jr., 2, lived in a house with an eroding foundation and a leaking roof.

Worse yet, access into (and within) the home hampered response to medical emergencies involving Louie Jr., whose multiple birth defects require around-the-clock care, including the use of medical equipment that enables the child to breathe and eat.

Even before the Vitale family’s daily challenges were revealed to a national audience during the Dec. 9, 2007, episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, the new handicapped-accessible home was already insured by Harleysville—free of charge for the next year.

The family was the seventh Harleysville has helped since establishing its connection with the ABC series in 2006.

A visit to the Vitales

“The kindness of strangers never ceases to amaze us,” observed Lou Vitale, after receiving the family’s new insurance policy with Harleysville. “Before I found out about it, my current insurance agent had called and told me that he had adjusted our policy to make sure we were covered.”

After learning the “adjusted” annual premium of the policy would be $2,400 a year, Vitale recalls his surprise: “I said: ‘Oh no, what happened?’ It was awesome that Harleysville stepped in to take a big weight off our shoulders.”

On Thursday, Dec. 6, 2007, the Vitales received a visit from their new insurers.

In attendance were Jill Maynard Nolan, president of Hull Maynard Hersey Insurance Services in Rutland, Vt., and Harleysville representative Dave Sides, assistant vice president of personal lines marketing for the Northeast region.

“It was an uplifting experience—truly a special event,” said Nolan. “I have goose bumps just thinking about the Vitales because they’re such kind and caring individuals. I cannot think of a couple who deserves this more than these two.”

“These are very friendly, good-hearted people,” observed Sides. “We walked into the house to introduce ourselves, but there were no handshakes. Instead, the Vitales hugged each of us and told us how appreciative they were for what we had done.”

Sides also was impressed by the family’s unselfish decision to serve as volunteers while their new home was being built—rather than accepting an offer from the show to go to Disneyworld. (The Vitales helped out at David’s House in Hanover, N.H., a facility where the family stayed when Louie was being treated at a nearby medical center.)

Meeting Louie’s future needs

As they care for Louie’s needs as a toddler, the Vitales are also preparing for his future.

Noting that “art is a universal language for those who cannot communicate in other ways,” Sara Vitale founded Angel Boy Art Incorporated to explore ways art can benefit special needs children, like Louie, and their families.

The nonprofit private foundation seeks to help special children express themselves through art and raise money for their families by selling the artwork. The foundation also hopes to demonstrate that handicapped children can communicate. (Visit the Angel Boy Art website.)

The Vitale family’s new Extreme Makeover: Home Edition home in Athens, Vt.

Agent Jill Maynard Nolan takes a turn at the controls of the “Hurrikane Express,” a giant-sized wooden locomotive hand-crafted by “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” volunteers for the bedroom of Kane Vitale.

Paging through an album showing a picture account of the whirlwind construction of the Vitales’ “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” home are: (left to right) Sara Vitale, Harleysville’s Dave Sides, agent Jill Maynard Nolan and Lou Vitale.

Preparing to celebrate their first Christmas in their new “Extreme Makeover: Home Edition” home are parents Sara and Lou Vitale, with sons Louie Angelo (center left) and Kane.