Station Casinos gives gift of renovations to St. Jude's

Manpower for nonprofit kids' shelter donated by Christmas in April

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For St. Jude's Ranch for Children teaching parents Konne and Tony Robillard, it was somewhat of a surprise to find out two weekends ago that Christmas really does come in April.

They didn't find any flocked trees or ornaments, nor did they find any tinsel in their group home on April 29, but the present they discovered was a work crew rebuilding, rehabilitating and repainting their St. Thomas cottage, home to six boys ages 9 to 16.

The crew was part of the nearly 50 Station Casino employees who volunteered their time and toiled at five of St. Jude's Ranch's occupied homes for a national event called Christmas in April, which is aimed at providing housing assistance in the form of labor and supplies for those less fortunate.

"I'm just overwhelmed," said Konne, a former project manager for a California construction company, who said working with children is her passion. "I don't know how to thank all these people for taking the time out of their day to do all this. It makes me cry."

The volunteers went from house to house among the five occupied residences, performing a multitude of tasks such as installing ceiling fans, replacing leaky valves, lining kitchen drawers, hanging new towel racks, painting walls and ceilings, and replacing broken or missing door handles.

"To have them come out here means everything because it makes it easier for us to do our job," said Tony, who was a painting contractor in California before he and his wife moved here 18 months ago. "We get busy with the kids -- what with school and going to court -- so its difficult keeping up with things. With them here painting and fixing things, it makes a big difference."

This year marks the fourth year Station Casinos has been involved with the Christmas in April program.

"In the previous years, we typically worked with nonprofit organizations associated with the elderly and low-income households helping those people with whatever they needed to make their homes more livable," said Melissa Nelson, director of corporate and government relations for Station Casinos, who also sits on the board of directors for the Christmas in April program. "This is the first year, though, that we picked a different type of nonprofit organization. Since Stations is a sponsor for Christmas in April and St. Judes, this worked out to be a good sponsorship for both of us."

Nelson said each home that's given a makeover gets about $5,000 worth of improvements, and that thanks to JB Flooring, two St. Judes homes -- St. Louis and St. George -- that each have about 3,500 square feet are getting free carpeting, thanks to one of Station Casinos' major vendors.

Even though the program is giving residential makeovers to 27 houses this year, Nelson said, the Christmas in April board is having a hard time finding qualified applicants for the fix-up work.

"Not only Stations, but the Hacienda Hotel, Nevada Power, Nellis Air Force Base and others have given us a lot of community partners that have come together to participate," Nelson said. "The problem is we can't find enough applicants. Part of it is because there still are a lot of people who don't know about Christmas in April and what it does."

While the Robillards said they believe the changes in their home will affect each of their boys differently, Konne said it definitely would have a profound effect on one in particular.

"We just got a new boy, an 11-year-old boy, who arrived here with basically nothing," Konne said. "We took him down to get some clothes and some toys to get him through the weekend and before he knew it, everybody was told to stack everything in the middle of their rooms. Even though his room wasn't ready, he was excited that his room was getting painted. He hadn't had a chance to put everything together in his new room, but when he realized he was getting his own new room, his eyes got so big.

"The first night he was by himself so he got scared and we sat out in the front room and he cried. But since we have to have more than one boy to a room, we're going to see who gets along the best with him and they'll be his roommate."

Tony and Konne Robillard have two grown children of their own, a son and a daughter, yet they still seem enthralled knowing there are children around.

"Our kids grew up, but we still have kids to play with," Tony said. "Some of the boys play football or basketball at the high school so we go to all those games and Konne used to coach softball. We found out we needed more kids since our daughter is 19 now and we're just loving it."