Working Vacation

When Art Payne took a week of vacation in February, he didn’t head to the beach. The director of Printing and Graphic Services at Connecticut’s Fairfield University flew down to Pascagoula, Miss., to work with a Habitat for Humanity team rebuilding houses damaged by Hurricane Katrina.

“Mississippi really took the brunt of the storm,” he says. “The damage there was quite devastating.”

Working 10-hour days, sleeping in a church and eating lots of peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, Payne and his crew of 15 rebuilt two homes that Habitat had started before the storm, installing plumbing and wiring, and putting up walls, siding and roofs. They also put in slabs for two new houses.

“I found it to be very fulfilling,” he says. “I just came away feeling really great.”

Payne volunteered for the project when he learned one of his neighbors was preparing to take part.

“I’m handy around the house,” he says. “I’ve always wanted to do something like this.”

He was amazed at how quickly the buildings went up through teamwork.

“I want to go back and do it again,” he declares.