Construction job all-women affair

NAILING IT: Laura Reed, forewoman for the all-women construction crew building a house for Habitat for Humanity in South Kingstown, gestures while talking to crew members Carol O’Donnell, foreground left, and Christine Fitzpatrick, center. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON
NAILING IT: Laura Reed, forewoman for the all-women construction crew building a house for Habitat for Humanity in South Kingstown, gestures while talking to crew members Carol O’Donnell, foreground left, and Christine Fitzpatrick, center. / PBN PHOTO/MICHAEL PERSSON

A Habitat for Humanity house going up on a piece of real estate on Old North Road in South Kingstown near the University of Rhode Island may look like just one more realization of a dream for a family looking to put down roots in a place of their own.
But the construction of the two-story, 1,300-square-foot, three-bedroom, two-bath home has a more unusual element – it’s being built by an all-women construction crew.
The project launched Oct. 19 with a Women Constructing Hope weekend build, which continued that weekend and the following one to get a substantial start on construction.
“We had more than 60 volunteers over the first weekend – all women,” said Carol O’Donnell, who is president of the Rhode Island chapter of the National Association of Women in Construction and owner of CRM Modular Homes in Johnston.
“There aren’t many women contractors,” said O’Donnell. “I just went into it because I wanted an unconventional way to open a business, and I didn’t want to sit at a desk all day.”
She began in the business 20 years ago with real estate courses, started buying vacant lots in Providence that were up for tax auctions in the 1980s and then started building.
O’Donnell’s volunteer work with Habitat has the same appeal as her paid efforts of buying lots and building houses, most recently in the Narragansett area.
“I feel great about it,” said O’Donnell. “I love to see families get into their new homes. It’s a big step. It’s one of the most important things you do in your life.”
Habitat for Humanity hasn’t selected a family yet to move into the home, which is in a cluster of four houses called Old North Village at the edge of the URI campus, said Sheila Martin, development and marketing director for South County Rhode Island Habitat for Humanity.
“We’ll sell this house for $110,000 and, obviously, it’s worth a lot more than that,” said Martin. Buying a Habitat home requires more than money – it requires a certain number of hours of “sweat equity” helping to build that house or others. If the owner moves, the house has to be sold back to Habitat.
The Old North Village home is LEED certified for energy efficiency and meets all standards for accessibility.
“Volunteers ranged in age from late teens to women in their 70s,” said Martin. “We have a lot of volunteers who are students at URI. They have a very active Habitat chapter there, and in addition to volunteering on the construction, they’ve raised more than $178,000 for the four houses we’re building in Old North Village.” This is the second time in the last 15 years that this Habitat chapter has built a home almost exclusively by women (some subcontracting jobs were not performed by women), said Martin, but the creation of all-women crews to fill out the volunteer ranks is growing in popularity, she said.
The idea for the all-women-built house arose naturally from a local all-female crew, said Martin, which was founded by South Kingstown resident Christine Fitzpatrick.
“A friend and I started the women’s crew seven or eight years ago,” said Fitzpatrick, who is one of a few women on the Habitat crew who is in her 70s. “I started working with Habitat on a house about 15 years ago because a friend of mine saw a note in the newspaper, and we thought it was a good idea, so we signed up.”
After some experience with her husband remodeling her own home, Fitzpatrick learned a lot more about construction working on Habitat projects.
“I learned a lot about nailing and nail guns and all kinds of saws,” said Fitzpatrick, who noticed a common occurrence among female volunteers before the women’s crew was formed – many didn’t come back.
“We were losing women all the time. They came, but they were embarrassed to ask how to use the tools. So we thought maybe we should start a women’s crew so they won’t be intimidated to ask how all these things work,” said Fitzpatrick, who taught sixth grade and French, but long has been retired.
Her natural inclination to teach has transferred well in helping other women learn about tools and construction. Her commitment, along with the volunteer efforts of other women, has created a women’s crew that works on Habitat projects every Thursday from 8:30 a.m. to 2:30 p.m., and occasionally at other times.
Fitzpatrick figures the women’s crew has been a good idea.
“They keep coming back, so I know they enjoy it,” said Fitzpatrick. The regular crew is about 25 women, with up to 15 usually able to volunteer on any given day.
Having volunteered on about 45 houses in her 15 years with Habitat, Fitzpatrick said she and the other women have learned lots of skills they now use on their own homes.
“It makes me feel good when one of the gals tells me she tiled her bathroom or did some painting or some roofing,” said Fitzpatrick. “It empowers them.”
Fitzpatrick said she’s seen a noticeable trend among the members of the Habitat women’s crew: “At Christmas, they ask for tools.” •

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