In the beginning, Valerie Nolasco’s only goal was to avoid elimination in the first week.
But once she made it past that threshold, her confidence accelerated, and before long, she wasn’t just hauling in drywall, she was painting and installing hardwood floors. She fully expected to be able to make it to the final episode of “Home Free” and show Angela Hurtado and David Araya how much she appreciated the impact they’d had on her and her little brother Stephen.
And so the 23-year-old Kennesaw State student hung in there until finally in the eighth week of the Fox television challenge, Nolasco was eliminated.
Her heroes wouldn’t be receiving their dream home.
If you’ve been watching the competition, you know there’s always a twist at the end of every episode. This one, which by the way took place in Dallas, Ga., and on the same street of the new Oakleigh Pointe subdivision, would be no different.
Nolasco, Hurtado and Araya, who’d just been told they lost, discovered they were still home free, albeit a wee smaller than the grand prize.
“It was crazy excitement,” Araya said. “A blessing beyond belief.”
And an answered prayer.
Recently married, David and Angela had been praying for a home, and this one was not only free, it was fully furnished.
People say it couldn’t have happened to a nicer couple.
"I have never known two more dynamic, focused young people," said Bill Maddox, spokesman for the Georgia Partnership for Excellence in Education. "They are genuinely good people who want to do good for others."
Maddox met the couple in 2011 when they were just dating and Angela was interning at the Georgia Partnership.
Although they grew up just 2 miles from each other in Suwanee and shared the same mentor at North Gwinnett High School, David’s and Angela’s paths didn’t cross until the summer of 2008 when David followed her to Gainesville State, now the University of North Georgia.
David was attending an orientation session for enrolling freshmen when a student, yep, introduced him to Angela, the girl mentor Kim Murphy was always talking about.
Angela was nice but quickly walked away.
They’d meet a few weeks later and soon became friends, carpooling back and forth to campus. By October that year, they were a couple and partners in bringing Hispanic speakers to the campus.
When one of the projects they were working on was suddenly yanked from them, Angela and David headed to a nearby Wendy’s to rant and lick their wounds.
They grabbed a napkin and started jotting down their ideas. They wanted to break the mold of low expectations and stereotypes of Latino students; to teach students the skills they need to successfully complete high school, apply for college scholarships and to positively engage and influence their families and communities. When they were done, the word “esperanza,” Spanish for hope, came to them, and from that emerged HoPe — short for the Hispanic Organization Promoting Education.
That was in January 2009. In November, they launched the organization, working with their alma mater North Gwinnett High.
“We started with one school and 20 students,” David said.
In March 2011, the organization received 501(c)(3) status and today is in 33 high schools and 12 school districts across the state with roughly 2,500 students participating.
Murphy said it doesn’t surprise her that the two of them would find a way to continue inspiring students to succeed, because that’s what they’d done at North Gwinnett.
She said the young couple epitomizes what servant leadership is all about.
“It’s inspiring to know that they are changing HoPe members’ lives,” she said.
Stephen Nolasco walked away changed after attending HoPe’s very first leadership conference, Valerie Nolasco said.
“They started the free hug campaign and my brother really took it to heart,” she said.
That same night, Stephen shared his experience on Facebook and warned he intended to keep the campaign going at school.
Nolasco said Stephen was particularly drawn to students who were considered outcasts, who were victims of bullies.
Although his campaign lasted only two weeks, Nolasco said it proved to be Stephen’s lasting legacy.
After just one semester at Georgia Perimeter College, he was killed in a horrific accident in 2013 when he lost control of his Volvo S60 and slammed into a brick sign off Sandy Plains Road.
Students at Sprayberry High School, where he graduated, never forgot the gesture.
And Nolasco never forgot how Angela and David helped him realize that he, too, could impact the world for good.
When she saw a way to pay it forward, to compete on “Home Free,” she jumped in.
Because she did, her heroes David Araya and his bride, Angela Hurtado, are “Home Free.”
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