This Week's Inspirational Pop Culture Moments

ABC/Bob D’Amico

 

A bachelorette helps makeover a family’s home, a reality star finds hope during a medical drama and a rock star let’s people pay what they can for food. Here are this week's most inspirational moments in pop culture.

Jillian Harris and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition Add Inspiration to Friday Nights

Jillian Harris came to fame on the reality dating show The Bachelor and, eventually, became The Bachelorette. And while she didn’t find long-lasting love on the franchise, she did make a connection with ABC. A designer in real life, Harris has spun her network connections into a recurring gig on Extreme Makeover: Home Edition.

In a recent exclusive interview Harris talked about the show’s new timeslot on Friday nights and the first family that will highlighted on the series’ that night. Harris reflected on why she thinks the move is a good one, saying, “We’ve got a lot of families who have family night on Fridays and there’s never any good TV on Fridays. So it’s going to be a really, really great show to go on Fridays.”

This week’s episode is a poignant one. Harris explained the Keefer family’s situation.

“They are a family of four young adult boys and, of course, a mother and a father. And Brian Keefer is 21 but when he was, I think he was 19, he had just graduated from high school. Super athletic guy, lots of energy, was horsing around at school and did some crazy gymnastics move and didn’t land it. And at the time it was him and his buddies and often times they didn’t land their jumps. So it wasn’t that big of a deal. But then Brian couldn’t get up. And he realized more than just being able to not get up, he became essentially a quadriplegic.”

Harris continued, “At 21 with a bright future ahead of him, as you can imagine it was really traumatic on the family. But the way that they dealt with it, Brian’s dad took an early retirement and took Brian back to college and they lived the most normal life possible — except for the dad is going back to college basically and Brian is in a wheelchair.”

But as with every episode of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, there is always inspiration within each tragedy. As Harris revealed, “The small moves that he’s made so far and some of the technology and equipment that we’ve provided to him to rehabilitate — it was just such a great week.”

Catch ExtremeMakeover: Home Edition in its new timeslot on Friday nights at 8 p.m. EST/7 p.m. Central on ABC.

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For more inspirational pop culture moments visit Beliefnet.com.