The BIA Parade of Homes benefits Nationwide Children’s Hospital. We met Grace at the Tuckerman Home a few days before the parade began. This is her touching story, as told by her father, of her experience with Children’s.

Gracie’s condition is Tetrology of Fallo which is a five-pronged congenital heart defect that forces lots of kids to have surgery immediately after birth. We got lucky with Grace. She was eight pounds at birth (October, 2001) and visibly healthy. No scary “blue” spells. They wanted her to put on enough weight to better the odds of her surviving surgery, but they didn’t want to wait too long.

Download the rest of Gracie’s story here.

Last week Michelle Etheridge, designer for Manor Homes, met with Yolanda to discuss some options for her design influence.

You’ll have to wait until the parade to see what they came up with (hint, it’s a pink room!) The next time you’re watching the Channel 6 evening news, see if you notice any hot glue stuck to Yolanda’s fingers (or other signs of decorating.)