CLEMMONS, NC -- A backyard turned into a construction site and the builders with only one person on their minds.
"The neatest thing about it is to see the smile on Abby's face when she comes back," Richard Childress said.
Abby Keating is an almost- three-year-old girl battling Acute Meyloid Lukemia. On Wednesday Childress and his crew built her a new playset.
"This not a cure but it will take them away, her and her family, away from cancer and that's what we want to do," Childress said.
Richard Childress Racing sponsored a ROC Solid Foundation build and volunteered their time and sweat to make Abby's dream of a place to play come true.
"I honestly had no idea what I was committed to but I'm excited and proud to be a part of it," driver Ryan Newman said.
Newman was in the middle of it all, building for Abby. It should come as no surprise that this pit crew completed the fastest build to date.
"The way that RCR jumped out of that van this morning I had a settling feeling that this was going to be a fast project," Eric Newman, founder of ROC Solid Foundation, said.
A project that's taken 17 hours in the past was completed in just two. And the moment Abby saw the playset for the first time made every minute worth it.
"I just knew when I took my hand off her eyes how she was just going to be, 'ahhhh,'" Abby's mom said. "She's been asking for a playset for so long and it just feels so good. We're probably going to be spending all of our hours out here now."
Abby spent four months in the hospital, cooped up in a tiny room.
"It feels good to let her just be a real kid again and run around."
Now, the thought of cancer is sliding away.
"She's doing the one thing a child never had to be taught to do – which is to play," Eric Newman said.
A day spent building not just a playset but hope.
"It builds hope for what our future holds for Abby."
