Rosemarie Caputo (left) and Frank Caputo work on a house on Price's Lane in Wilmington.
Photo | Jason A. Frizzelle

StarNewsOnline.com

Couple pitches in on Habitat projects no matter what the job

By Si Cantwell
Staff Writer

Published: Tuesday, December 16, 2008 at 1:20 p.m.

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EDITORS NOTE: Voices of Conscience is a 10-part series highlighting the work of volunteers in our community. We hope running it during the holidays will spur others to act in unselfish ways.
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Rosemarie Caputo likes digging footers.

She may be 71 years old, but to her there's nothing better than grabbing a shovel and digging a trench 1 to 2 feet deep and 24 inches wide around a house site to accommodate the foundation wall.

"It's such a wonderful feeling, being side-by-side with future homeowners," she said.

She and her husband, Frank, were out at Cottages at Cornerstone. The retirees were spending their Wednesday morning building the subfloor on a house and laying out walls to be framed on Saturday.

Frank began volunteering with Cape Fear Habitat for Humanity about five years ago. Rosemarie has been coming to the job sites for three years.

They have become part of a regular band of volunteers who turn out each week to build houses to be purchased by low- and middle-income families.

In return for a no-interest, no-down payment home loan, Habitat's prospective homeowners put in 400 hours of "sweat equity." They also take classes in money management and home maintenance, and pay the closing costs on their loans.

Cottages at Cornerstone is a Habitat development north of Princess Place Drive. It will eventually total 32 homes, 30 built by Habitat and two by AME Zion Housing Development Corp. Some 14 of the houses there have been completed and three more are under construction.

Habitat recruits individual volunteers but also has many organizations that send teams over on Saturday mornings to work. The teams may be from churches, businesses, civic organizations or other associations. A team may work as little as one Saturday a year.

Their work is far more effective because of the dedicated group of volunteers who turn out each Wednesday morning. That group includes professional and retired builders, and people like the Caputos who work hard and are willing to learn.

Habitat aims to build about 12 houses a year. It uses about 5,500 volunteers a year including the Wednesday and Saturday work crews, a twice-monthly electrical crew and a landscape installation crew from Cape Fear Community College that works as needed.

Rosemarie and Frank are there just about every Wednesday and every Saturday.

"I do just about anything, but I don't do roofs," Frank said, and Rosemarie agreed.

"We leave that to the young kids from UNCW," she said.

They also cook for Habitat events and for young people who spend vacations working on houses.

They moved here in 1994. They lived for a time in Bluffton, S.C., near Hilton Head.

The community wasn't diversified enough for Rosemarie's taste, and they had a longtime friend who had made Wilmington home.

Frank was in electronics sales in Stamford, Conn., and he started Carolina Industrial Electronics here, selling components to area manufacturers. He sold the business in 2004.

Rosemarie's background was in human resources. She retired from New Hanover Regional Medical Center in 1999.

On Wednesdays, they're among the first ones out to the job site, said Russ Cline, a Habitat construction supervisor.

"I'm an early bird," Rosemarie explained.

Si Cantwell: 343-2364

http://www.starnewsonline.com/article/20081216/ARTICLES/812160303

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