Extreme Makeover: Home Edition

In February 2020, the television’s highest-rated home renovation series of all time – Extreme Makeover: Home Edition – rebooted on HGTV with a new host, UNHCR supporter Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

On its second episode, the show featured the Barobi family, a resettled refugee family from the Democratic Republic of the Congo who lost their parents and younger sister to violence and were resettled to Utah in 2014.

USA for UNHCR supported the Barobi family’s episode through a series of activations across television, website, email, digital ads and our social media channels. This included a 30-second television commercial which aired during the episode, a Facebook party event and an Instagram takeover with Jesse Tyler Ferguson.

We also provided a $10,000 grant to the Bicycle Collective, a local organization in Utah that provides refurbished bicycles and other resources to resettled refugees. With the grant, the Bicycle Collective provided each member of the Barobi family with a bicycle as well as 239 bicycles to other resettled refugees in the local community.