Habitat

Home builders have a reputation for toughness, but Jim Carper believes he's found a chink in the armor. "The way to bring tears to a builder's eyes," said Carper, editor-in-chief of Professional Builder magazine, is "by developing and delivering homes to first-time buyers who never thought they'd have homes. " Affordable housing pretty much sums up the current trend in home building, although, as Habitat for Humanity founder Millard D. Fuller points out, "what is affordable to one person can be out of the reach of another.

When she died two years ago, Margaret Dougherty had spent all 75 of her years in a two-story brick twin house at 920 Highland Ave. in the West End. The neighborhood was once solidly middle-class. But a combination of old housing stock, high taxes and increased crime has made it less desirable in recent years. Several vacant, boarded-up houses underscore the decline. When Dougherty's daughter tried to sell the house after her mother's death, she found no immediate takers. Then she decided to donate it to the Delaware County chapter of Habitat for Humanity, which has made the house its first undertaking in Chester.

Where there was nothing but a rough foundation yesterday morning, there will be a house ready to be roofed and sided today. And in a matter of weeks, the Caspian Avenue property between Michigan and Ohio Avenues, once a vacant, trash-strewn lot, will become home to Christine Mitchell and her five daughters. As if this were an old-fashioned barn raising, various segments of this gambling resort came together yesterday, including the city, a casino, a union, a state agency, and the area chapter of Habitat for Humanity, to begin construction on Mitchell's four-bedroom, $50,000 home.

Hunching over with a paint brush in one hand and without bending his knees, Lee Hammond stretched his right arm to the floor to double-coat the baseboards in a simple shade of cream. "I don't measure and saw boards and nail them and all that," said the retired lab technician from Pitman. "All I ever do is paint; that's my area of expertise. " His dirty, green baseball cap kept the paint from speckling his hair, and his beige polyester shorts did the same for his thighs. His olive dress socks didn't seem to fit the occasion, but then again, volunteering shouldn't be a fashion statement.

Bright orange extension cords stretch over the sidewalk, coiling between high ladders and large sheets of polystyrene insulation that two volunteers are slowly nailing to the side of the Burlington City home. The two, members of the Company Grade Officers Association at McGuire Air Force Base, this day have traded their usual uniforms for carpenters' smocks to help Habitat for Humanity renovate the Green Street home. The officers' group began volunteering in October at the two-story house as its community service project for the year, said First Lt. Beth Hickok.

Frank and Sue Ellen Monaghan of Medford want their son Patrick to be remembered as a giver, not a receiver. They want everyone to know that during his 16 years, volunteerism and helping others were at the top of his priorities. "He realized he was very fortunate, and he wanted to help others," Frank Monaghan said. Last summer, Patrick spent a week in West Virginia with the youth group from St. Mary of the Lakes Catholic Church in Medford, helping, through Habitat for Humanity, the less fortunate.

Nothing elicits squeals of delight like a power tool, says do-it-yourselfer Shelly Halloran. As program director for the Philadelphia branch of Habitat for Humanity, Halloran frequently witnesses the excitement that accompanies someone's first attempt at correctly pounding home a nail or using a screw gun - doubled in intensity when the builder is female. Women Build, an international program offered through Habitat for Humanity, encourages women to get involved in construction work by providing basic hands-on training and organizing women-specific job sites.

A six-year study of the Delaware River and Bay has concluded that there were "dramatic improvements" in water quality in the last several decades, but that serious problems remain. The area still suffers from toxic chemical pollution, loss of habitat for wildlife, and loss of open space. Also, heavy use of surface and groundwater threatens the watershed's long-term supply, the report concluded. The report by the tri-state Delaware Estuary Program cost $6 million to $8 million and involved thousands of hours of input from hundreds of participants, both professionals and volunteers.

Standing in the midday heat, Alexis Jeffcoat got right to the point. "It is too hot to exist right now," said Jeffcoat, 22, a volunteer coordinator for a Habitat for Humanity project yesterday in the Parkside section of West Philadelphia. While many folks spent the last few days staying as cool as possible, about 50 volunteers from the ACE Group and GMAC cut boards and pounded nails under a blazing sun as part of the project at 42d and Stiles Streets. Jeffcoat encouraged the volunteers to drink plenty of water and take frequent breaks in the shade as they worked on putting plywood down on the first-floor beams.

Three synagogues and the Jewish Federation of Southern New Jersey have launched a campaign to raise money to build a house for needy residents in Camden. Construction on the home, to be called Shalom House, is scheduled to begin this fall under the auspices of the Metropolitan Camden chapter of Habitat for Humanity. Congregation M'kor Shalom and Temple Emanuel, both in Cherry Hill, and Congregation Adath Emanu-El in Mount Laurel have joined the Jewish Federation in an effort to raise $50,000, the projected cost of building a two-story twin home on Benson Street near the waterfront.