Leisurely labor

JACKSON, Miss. – Junior Wilson was holding court for a group of vacationers amid a pile of lumber and a pair of sawhorses. He called it “Junior’s School for the Carpentry Impaired.”

“You’ll use four nails on this stud,” he said, demonstrating proper hammering technique. Three or four strikes to each nail, and it was home.

I took a turn. Twenty-eight strikes and my first nail still hadn’t flattened into the stud.

“You’re being too nice to it,” said a woman working nearby. “Knock the hell out of it.” Everyone laughed.

The group was good-natured – especially considering the sun hadn’t risen yet – and good-intentioned: All were volunteers with the shared goal of rebuilding homes lost to hurricanes Katrina and Rita.

Some had flown or driven across the nation to be here when Habitat for Humanity International launched its newest project, Operation Home Delivery.

Habitat, a nonprofit organization that has built more than 200,000 houses worldwide, moved quickly after Katrina barreled through the Gulf Coast in late August. Less than 36 hours after the hurricane made landfall near New Orleans, Habitat had a new home page on its Web site: “Help hurricane victims rebuild their lives!”

More than 60 houses already have been framed; thousands are on the drawing boards. For the most part, they will be built by volunteers, many of whom will do so on their vacation.

Philanthropic tours – vacations with heart – have been on the rise since the tsunami devastated parts of South Asia in late 2004. Thousands of volunteers have spent the last 10 months cleaning beaches, restoring temples, and building houses and schools.

Habitat is one of the groups involved; it alone has built or repaired about 2,000 homes in Thailand, India, Indonesia and Sri Lanka.

It sponsors about 400 building trips abroad each year. Volunteers pay their own way – each spending about $100 a day, plus airfare – to work on homes in places such as El Salvador, Ethiopia, Senegal, New Zealand, Honduras and Chile.

But people who want to add meaning to their vacations don’t need to go abroad to do so. Volunteer vacations have been a developing segment of the American travel industry for decades.

In the United States, altruistic travelers can repair and build trails with the American Hiking Society, keep track of bottlenose dolphins for the Oceanic Society or work on the Rosebud Sioux Tribe’s reservation in South Dakota with Global Volunteers.

Most of the trips are sponsored by nonprofit groups; many are partially tax deductible. Organizers say they’re a way for people to give back while they’re getting away.

“It’s travel that feeds the soul,” says Bud Philbrook, co-founder of Global Volunteers.

Although no one keeps statistics, most groups say disasters cause spikes of interest in philanthropic travel. Habitat’s Web site (www.habitat.org) has registered more than 25,000 volunteers since Katrina crashed ashore. And donations have topped $42.5 million.

“People want to help,” said Paul Leonard, the organization’s chief executive.

That was the sentiment that drove us in Jackson.

Doug Shade flew in from Phoenix; Larry Orsini wheeled his RV south from Olean, N.Y.; Georgia residents Fitz and Diane Wickham gave up a vacation in California to come here.

Like many Americans, they groped for words when they talked about the devastation in the Gulf region. All said they wanted to do something, to lend a hand. Habitat gave them the means.

They sawed and hammered, carried and lifted. Regardless of their building skills, they were able to help.

“Spending four days at a beach didn’t seem right after the hurricanes,” Diane Wickham said. “It’s wonderful to be a part of this. To see a bunch of pieces of wood and all of a sudden walls are going up and you know it’s going to become a home.”

Orsini wasn’t sure where he was headed when he left New York. “But I knew I was going to build houses with Habitat,” he said.

He stopped at a state welcome center when he crossed into Mississippi: “They told me how to get here.”

Shade left his wife and two daughters back home when he hopped aboard an eastbound plane, then spent his 44th birthday alone in a restaurant with their pictures propped up on the table beside him. “It was the loneliest birthday dinner of my life,” he said.

But he was glad he came: “I got here at 5:15 (a.m.) and they had me working by 5:30. It’s been an awesome, amazing couple of days.

“I’m not a builder, but when I get back to Phoenix, I’m going to swing a hammer for Habitat.”

The organization, which has 1,700 member groups throughout the world, usually concentrates its efforts locally, whether it’s in the Los Angeles area – where 175 homes have been built by the Greater L.A. chapter since 1990 – or in Indonesia, where 818 homes have been constructed since the Dec. 26 tsunami.

Katrina’s devastation and the uncertainty of where and when new homes could be built called for a new plan. Habitat’s solution is Operation Home Delivery – framing houses at a few U.S. sites, packaging the components in shipping containers and sending them to the Gulf Coast to be completed when an infrastructure is in place.

Because of Jackson’s proximity to New Orleans – it’s a three- to four-hour drive – it was considered an operations base.

Habitat managers readily acknowledge that all the program’s details haven’t been worked out yet.

“We’re inventing the airplane while we’re flying,” said Fred Angelo, construction manger for the Jackson affiliate.

But the opportunity to make a difference was so great that the group “jumped into the middle of this troubled water,” said Leonard, the CEO.

“I think we can demonstrate what a group of committed people can do when they put their hearts, minds and hammers together,” he said.

Out on the construction site – in this case, the parking lot of the Mississippi Agriculture & Forestry Museum – the builders were doing just that. And having a good time.

Guitar-playing groups sang appropriate work-site favorites such as “If I Had a Hammer.” A nurse offered bandages and advice for the clumsy. Carb-loading breakfasts such as sausage biscuits and croissants were free for the taking.

And while hammers were pounding, there was gossip and silliness.

“You know that hammer Junior has?” Shade asked me. “It’s not like the one you have. Yours probably weighs 12 or 14 ounces. His probably weighs 2 pounds. And look at how long that handle is.”

When Wilson strolled by a little later, I asked about it.

“I call this hammer Big Bertha,” he said proudly. “It weighs 24 ounces; I had the handle specially made.”

I looked closely. Bertha seemed big enough to drive railroad spikes.

Shade laughed and looked at me: “He probably carries a picture of that hammer in his wallet.” Wilson grinned.

Habitat’s Leonard would like to see 250 homes built in the Gulf Coast area by the end of the year. The Jackson crew did its share.

During the four-day blitz, organizers hoped to frame five or six homes. But by the end of the fourth day – when lumber ran out – 14 had been constructed.

Builders gave them names like Love, Peace, Joy, Hope.

And a volunteer used a marking pen to scratch a heartfelt message over each doorway: “God bless this house and all who enter here.”