HGTV's 'Listed Sisters' help renovate Thistle Farms

To kick off a nationwide volunteer effort of women helping women, HGTV and the stars of its show "Listed Sisters" partnered with Rebuilding Together Nashville Tuesday to renovate Thistle Farm’s sanctuary, a shelter for women who are healing from prostitution, trafficking and addiction.

HGTV and volunteers from Rebuilding Together spent the day cleaning, remodeling and renovating Thistle Farms’ largest shelter to provide better accommodations for the 11 women who live there. Helping alongside the celebrities and community volunteers were members of the Thistle Farms community, including the women who live in the house.

“This project has allowed us to not feel like outcasts,” said Anika Rogers, a 2015 graduate of Thistle Farms programs. “They’re making our house blend in with the newer houses. This has given me my dignity and self-esteem back, and has allowed me to find my voice and be of service to other people.”

The identical twins Alana and Lex LeBlanc, the stars of HGTV’s Nashville-based renovation show “Listed Sisters,” were helping with major projects on the house including installing new floors, planting a garden and providing touch-up paint throughout the sanctuary.

“We are making this house a home for these women,” Alana LeBlanc said. “They deserve to have a comfortable and safe place to be together.”

HGTV and Rebuilding Together are marking the renovation of Thistle Farms sanctuary as the kickoff to their nationwide “She Builds” initiative, which seeks to empower women to change their own communities.

“The women we’ve talked to here in the house are not only grateful for a new home but also that women are helping women for this project,” Lex LeBlanc said. “We are not just telling, but actually showing women that they can do things themselves.”

HGTV and Rebuilding Together approached Thistle Farms more than two months ago about the project and said that they saw the Nashville-based women’s community as a role model for other cities.

House Speaker Beth Harwell and Mayor Megan Barry also stopped by the sanctuary renovation, offering encouragement and support for the project.

“I think Nashville is absolutely the right city to get started in,” Harwell said. “This is a community that cares deeply. So many of the people who face poverty or difficult situations are women. When they can band together to help each other, it sends a powerful message.”

After finishing the renovations in Nashville, HGTV and Rebuilding Together plans to bring the “She Builds” initiative to New York and Seattle this September, followed by four other major cities in 2017.

“Having the Listed Sisters and local politicians here is amazing,” Rogers said. “To see people on TV and have them here helping out is remarkable. This is what community is about, we are all one.”