A home for the holidays: Locals, Realtors renovate trailer for young single mother

In the front yard of a modest blue trailer, 12-year-old Nathan Small packed a snowball into his hands and hucked it toward his younger brother, Tyrell Small, who wielded a branch like a makeshift bat. He whipped the stick through the air, barely striking the snowball and let out a victorious shout. Watching from the driveway was their 19-year-old sister Makynzie Kurns, her 1-year-old son Graycen nestled in her arms.

They’d come a long way in the past couple of years, bouncing from home to home before landing in an Evergreen trailer court. And despite its many flaws, the mobile home before them was theirs. Kurns purchased it back in May for $1,000 with money from her savings and a little help from her sister.

“It was pretty broken up — there were holes in every single room,” she said. “It looked like someone went in there with a hammer and started going crazy.”

The front door didn’t shut, only the subfloor remained and if she plugged something in to the front corner socket, the rest of the outlets would go dark.

Still, Kurns looked past the disrepair and thought: “We can make it.”

“There’s a heater in here, there’s water, there’s a roof over our head,” Kurns said of her new home. It wasn’t much, but it was hers.

She came from a place where stability — even as primitive as this — wasn’t guaranteed; where she and her brothers often came second to drugs. Kurns was determined to take a different path than her parents.

In early October, she was dealt a rare, favorable hand. A group of generous local residents and Realtors learned of her situation and wanted to help make her trailer into a home. Over the past couple of weeks, they’ve begun a full-scale home makeover; transforming the space from the flooring on up completely free of charge.

“There are good people in this world still,” Kurns said. “Words can’t even explain the feelings. It definitely gives me faith.”

KURNS AND her brothers moved to the Flathead Valley in 2012 after their mother’s drug use landed the trio in foster care. A year later, their mother sobered up and moved to Kalispell, along with JR and Tyrell’s father. When that relationship unraveled a few years later, Kurn’s mom moved to Butte to live with a new partner. Around this time, Kurns, then 17, found out she was pregnant.

“Right then and there I started bawling. I was freaking out. I was so mad. It was scary. I was really, really scared,” she recalled. “I had no education, no driver’s license, I had nothing.”

She considered her options and what she had to offer the child. The baby’s father was soon out of the picture, although his family offered to help. Even with the odds stacked against her, she chose motherhood.

“Should I go get an abortion because I don’t have anything in life right now or should I grow some strength and do what needs to be done? And that’s what I went for,” she said.

Kurns knew she didn’t want to be alone with a new baby on the way so she, too, moved to Butte.

For a while things were good. She had an apartment and passed her HISET exam, earning the equivalent of a high school diploma. She gave birth to a beautiful baby boy and called him Graycen.

But then things took a turn for the worse.

GRAYCEN’S father was killed in a motorcycle accident in September 2019. And Nathan and Tyrell’s dad lost custody of her brothers because of his alcohol use, forcing the boys to live with their mother and her new boyfriend.

And at the beginning of this year, she got a call from Child Protective Services.

“There were accusations of the boys getting beat by my mom’s boyfriend. Tyrell had handprint bruises on him,” Kurns said. “It was really sad.”

A few hours and a mountain of paperwork later, Kurns became their guardian. She had a 1-year-old, two young boys and little means of providing for them. But Kurns was nothing if not resourceful. When she got word of a $1,000 trailer for sale in Kalispell, she took action, moving her family from Butte back to the Flathead.

It was there that her luck turned for the better. While visiting the HEART Locker, a nonprofit that provides clothing and school supplies to students in need, she was connected with local Realtor Betty Ann Morgan, of Morgan Real Estate, who has an interest in mentoring young people. Morgan met with Kurns and stopped by to see her trailer.

“Some of the windows wouldn’t shut. Both bathrooms, the sheetrock had been ripped out. One of them didn't even have a sink. The kitchen had a partial counter …. Maybe two cupboards? Basically, they were living in a shell -- but it was clean,” Morgan said. “When I left, I just cried. Something has to be done. What can I do?”

She said a prayer that night and posted about Kurns’ living situation on the community chat app Nextdoor, which members use to share local news and ask for recommendations, among other things. As word spread, locals began reaching out to offer help and eventually the Northwest Montana Association of Realtors got wind of the situation. That’s when things kicked into high gear. They decided to completely gut and rehab the trailer, installing new appliances and providing furniture, clothes and other essentials. They divided themselves into teams: one group handled construction and solicited donations for materials, while another signed on to help with move-in and organization and a third was tasked with wellness — providing food, cooking instruction and more.

“People want to help, you just have to let them know where it’s needed,” said Morgan. “Everything happened then within a week.”

DONATIONS OF all kinds flooded in. One man offered to take Kurns, her family and partner Gracelynn Romaine, to Costco, fill up a cart and cover the cost. Another person put snow tires on Kurns’ car. One Montana Realtor offered to pay for all the flooring. And countless others have donated supplies, appliances and other household goods. Local residents, individual Realtors and the NMAR Foundation are working together to cover the costs of the repairs, outfitting the young family for the winter and beyond.

“It has just been so wonderful, during this time when things are so negative that this love is just outpouring from the community,” Morgan said. “This girl wants to get ahead; she wants to get herself out of this hole...I hope to have them in a warm, safe environment and to take off a little bit of the stress that she has in her life of surviving so that she can concentrate on being a good mother and getting her education.”

In January, Kurns will begin her studies at Flathead Valley Community College with plans to become a licensed addiction counselor. Kurns wants to draw from her own experiences and help other teens.

“I have the experience — I know what it’s like,” she said.

Realtor Jana Penland, of Montana Land and Home, is managing the move-in phase of the operation and said she hopes the renovated trailer is only the start of the next phase of Kurns’ life.

“Micky is very sweet and very teachable, so the most exciting part is to think that I can continue this relationship in such a way that this is not a one-time thing and then we all leave,” Penland said. “This moment in time is just laying a foundation that could change the rest of her life.”

Reporter Mackenzie Reiss may be reached at 758-4446 or mreiss@dailyinterlake.com.

BREAKOUT

To help Kurns and her family, contact Jana Penland at (406) 212-5623 or by email at jana.mtlandh@gmail.com.