NAPA member helps pull off Mullins Miracle

Volunteers and donors from across the country, including NAPA members, came together to support a Kentucky family in Lincoln County that had a challenging 2024.

Cindy Mullins lost parts of her limbs over the holidays in 2023, due to a rare infection caused by a kidney stone. Occupational therapy helped Mullins to adapt, but the changes meant her family’s home was less accommodating.

News of the family’s troubles made its way to Central Seal, where Cindy’s husband, D.J., works. Word eventually reached Hog Technologies Founder & CEO James Crocker, who was moved to lead a homebuilding effort loosely based on television’s home makeover shows. Crocker solicited donations and volunteers to build a new, accessible home for the Mullins family, provided the family could find the land. The family acquired a vacant lot for the project, which aimed to construct a homestead in just 10 days.

The Allen Company Danville Area Manager Brandon Saylor said he heard about the challenges facing the Mullins family because Central Seal does the striping for their highway projects. After some phone calls trickled down, he went out to look at the site and met with D.J. and Doug Rose, the project facilitator.

“I quickly realized this was a massive undertaking that they were doing in a very quick fashion,” he said, sharing how he got his orders from Rose and began taking measurements. “The house was the main focus: getting them a dwelling that they could live in and that was handicapped accessible. But they realized pretty quick that we need to be able to get Cindy to and from the street and the mailbox. Being able to have access outside of her property was also a key component of the project, so we just kind of jumped in and did what we could.”

More than 350 volunteers supported the construction of the 7,000-square foot home, whether through labor, serving donated meals, clearing debris, or directing traffic. Saylor said once construction began the week after Labor Day, the house began to come together even faster than he imagined.

“They hit the ground running,” he said. “Every day it was like ‘How in the world did this happen overnight? I came in yesterday and it was a shell and today you’re putting floors in!’ Like how does that happen? It was breathtaking.”

Saylor said while the Mullins family was already known in the closeknit Stanford community, seeing how Cindy responded to her setbacks was inspiring.

“Everybody else wanted to feel sorry for her, but she’s just the most uplifting and positive person you can imagine,” he said. “Obviously, it was taking a toll on her, but this is an area where you make quick friends and everybody’s willing to help.”

Saylor said he was happy to be a part of something bigger, and to contribute to the community in a different way from the typical road surfacing.

“In our industry, we kind of get known as the people in the way: the ones causing traffic jams with our orange cones and delays on the way to work because the public loses sight of how we’re taking care of the roadways and infrastructure.” he said. “It was very rewarding to actually have something to do where you can see the appreciation in someone’s eyes. We’ve done something that’s really impacted a family versus just resurfacing roadways that everyone takes for granted that you drive on every single day.”

The paving work wrapped on Sept. 16 and two days later there were throngs of people on site who turned out to watch the members of the Mullins family receive the keys to their new house.

“At five o’clock, it’s like the whole town showed up: I’m talking 600-700 people lining the driveway,” he said, adding that the local high school marching band led Cindy and her family’s motorcade up to the house, which she was able to walk through for the first time.

Saylor said he relished the opportunity to give back to a family directly, not though the typical route of monetary gifts.

“It’s important, don’t get me wrong, but very rarely do we in this industry get to give a tangible gift, such as a driveway, that means so much to a family in need,” he said. “It was great to be able to give something physical that someone could see and use on a daily basis, because without it she couldn’t do some of the things outside with her family that she had done before.

“It was life-changing project for me, and I was blessed to do it.”

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For 85 years, The Allen Company has operated in Central Kentucky, where it has three quarries and five asphalt mix plants.