"Tin Man" Helps Family Discover There's No Place Like Home

New "Wizard of Oz" themed SCI FI Channel miniseries sponsors Kansas City Habitat home, challenges others to get involved through online fundraiser.

The SCI FI Channel, along with its newest original miniseries production Tin Man, is partnering with Habitat for Humanity to help a Habitat partner family in Kansas discover "there is no place like home." The partnership will see the network and the newly re-imagined incarnation of L. Frank Baum's classic The Wonderful Wizard Oz support the dreams of one Habitat family by fully funding a new homebuilding project. Additionally, SCI FI is raising funds through the channel's Brick by Brick online fundraiser to help make additional affordable housing opportunities possible.

"We are grateful to the SCI FI Channel and the cast, crew and producers of Tin Man not only for helping a family realize the dream of their own decent, affordable home in Kansas, but also for helping raise awareness about the need for affordable housing across the country and around the world," said Jonathan Reckford, CEO of Habitat for Humanity International.

Construction on the Habitat home in Kansas City begins this month and coincides with the launch of the Brick by Brick Web site. The home is being built by Heartland Habitat for Humanity, which is based in Kansas City and builds houses in partnership with low-income families in Wyandotte, Johnson and Leavenworth counties in Kansas and Clay and Platte counties in Missouri.

"SCI FI Channel is proud to join forces with Habitat for Humanity to help fulfill one family's dream of a new home in Kansas," says Dave Howe, general manager and executive vice president, SCI FI Channel. "By engaging our audience through on-air promotion and our online fundraising campaign, we hope to open the doors for more homes for more families in the future."

Tin Man debuts Sunday, December 2 at 9 p.m. EST/ 8 p.m. CST.

In this new re-imagined tale, the young heroine DG (Zooey Deschanel) begins her epic journey in Kansas and is plucked from her humdrum life and thrust into The Outer Zone (the O.Z.), a world filled with villains and creatures. Her perilous journey to find her way back home leads her to a wizard known as the Mystic Man (Richard Dreyfuss). Along the way, she is joined by a decidedly strange trio of companions - Glitch, (Alan Cumming) an odd man missing half his brain; Raw, (Raoul Trujillo) a quietly powerful wolverine-like creature longing for inner courage, and Cain, (Neal McDonough) a heroic former policeman (known in the O.Z. as Tin Men, for their tin badges). For more information, including cast bios, photo and video galleries and quizzes, visit www.scifi.com/tinman.

SCI FI Channel is a television network where "what if" is what's on. SCI FI fuels the imagination of viewers with original series and events, blockbuster movies and classic science fiction and fantasy programming, as well as a www.scifi.com and magazine. Launched in 1992, and currently in 92 million homes, SCI FI Channel is a network of NBC Universal, one of the world's leading media and entertainment companies.

Habitat for Humanity International is an ecumenical Christian ministry that welcomes to its work all people dedicated to the cause of eliminating poverty housing. Since its founding in 1976, Habitat has built more than 250,000 houses worldwide, providing simple, decent and affordable shelter for more than 1 million people. For more information, visit www.habitat.org.

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