Labors of Love : Christmas in April Delivers Improvements to 16 O.C. Homes

Christmas came early this year for the Spray family. The couple who use wheelchairs watched with joy as more than 40 volunteers modified their home to become more accessible.

“This is the highlight of my life next to giving birth to my children. I’ll always remember it until I’m old and gray,” said Sheila Spray, 36, while admiring her new cement sidewalk.

The Sprays’ home is among 16 chosen this year as part of a renovation project by the group Christmas in April. The volunteer organization of Orange County is part of a national organization that annually provides free home repairs for Orange County’s low-income, elderly, or disabled home-owners and community shelters every year.

The event Saturday morning drew more than 700 volunteers, who gathered at a warehouse in Garden Grove to get their assignments.

The volunteers at the Sprays’ house removed paint chips for spray-painting later, swept the floor, moved items and painted.

The Sprays, who have cerebral palsy, said their children, Laura, 11, Meghan, 6, and Andrew, 1, are able-bodied. The couple said they’re most pleased with the wider doorways that now allow them to enter their children’s room for the first time.

“Before, I had to stop at the entrance and then crawl inside,” said Sheila Spray. “The face lift of our house also gives us a better mental outlook,” said Donald Spray, 40. Donald Spray said he can move more easily with the new ramps at the entrances to the house, and the cement blocks that stretch across the front lawn connecting it to the back yard.

Bob Smith, a volunteer and “house captain” for renovations on the Sprays’ home, said the repairs included carpeting the entire house, lowering kitchen cabinets for easier access, trimming trees and shrubs, adding new windows and screens for the patio, and painting the interior and exterior.

A smiling Sheila Spray said her other favorite adjustment in the house is having the kitchen cabinets lowered.

“It’s been frustrating to depend on our children to reach a lot of things,” she said.

Penny Boeck, a volunteer from Laguna Hills who was painting the living room, said, “As a wife and mom, you take things for granted. In a wheelchair you’re so restricted to do anything. People don’t think about things like that.”

Another volunteer, Paula Mizer of Huntington Beach, said she enjoyed the “hard manual labor,” like helping to dump the debris.

“I’ve heard of things like this happening before. But to see it happens is amazing,” said Sherri Neal, who videotaped two volunteers moving a wooden cabinet in the house.

Neal, Donald Spray’s sister, said she wants to show the videotape to their mother, who was baby-sitting Spray’s three children.

Suzanne Frank, president of Orange County’s Christmas in April, said the organization is funded by donations and sponsorships from local businesses.

Frank said the group spent $60,000 on the 16 homes this year. Referrals of the homes are made by churches, senior citizens’ service centers and community centers. She said the number of homes they can repair depends on the funding that year.