An admitted longtime “putterer and tinkerer around the house,” Nick DeVito always enjoyed watching do-it-yourself shows on television. About six years ago, he happened to catch an episode of “This Old House” that profiled the Habitat for Humanity organization.
The group is a nationwide organization of volunteers who build and repair homes for the needy and the elderly.
“I thought that what the group was doing was a really neat idea,” says DeVito, 38.
A year later, AT&T Bell Laboratories, now Lucent Technologies, transferred DeVito to Naperville from New Jersey. At a department reorganization meeting, he listened as a number of employees introduced themselves.
“This one guy got up and said he was the secretary of the Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity group, and I thought that was great,” DeVito recalls. “And he told me they were going to build a house that weekend. And I said, `They let you do that?’ And he said, `Sure.’ “
DeVito accompanied his co-worker that weekend to a construction site in Aurora and lent a hand in building a house.
“We started out early in the morning with just a deck and a pile of wood, and by the end of the day we had gotten all the walls of the house up and the roof was going on,” he says. “And I was like, `Wow!’
“That Saturday, I got hooked, and I’ve gone back every Saturday since then that I could.”
Over the last five years, DeVito has helped the group construct about a dozen houses, most of them in Aurora.
“The houses we build have a 960-square-feet footprint and have three bedrooms, one bathroom, a little laundry area and central heating,” he says. “Sometimes there’s an attached garage, and sometimes there’s a detached garage. It’s quite a comfy and efficient little home.”
He adds, “Even though each house is a little different, we keep it simple.”
DeVito’s contributions run the gamut. “I’ve done everything, but you’ve got to do what needs to be done,” he says.
On a recent weekend, he said, the group was “building a platform, so it’s a lot of rough framing. The members of the group do everything themselves except for the concrete work and the drywall finishing. And sometimes a professional will donate the plumbing work.
“I particularly like doing the finish carpentry, such as the trim work and the kitchen cabinets,” he says. “I probably like that because it’s a little more precise in nature, and it looks really nice if you do it right.”
Since joining the group, his house-building skills have become “well-honed,” he says:
“I think I can do stuff better and faster now. I can also more clearly tell other volunteers how to do things.”
DeVito also is proud of how much the Fox Valley group has progressed in the last five years.
The first house the group built took a year, he says, but by the time he started volunteering, the construction time had been cut to six to eight months.
“Now, we’ve got it down to about three or four months,” he says. “We built three houses in 1997.”
“What’s happened is that the crew that shows up is made up of very regular volunteers,” he explains. “And in addition to the crew that shows up every Saturday, we have a crew of retired guys who go out on Thursday.”
DeVito finds the benefits that Habitat for Humanity provides its clients are rewarding.
“It’s a hand up, not a handout,” he says. “We not only build the houses, but we provide a 20-year mortgage to the homeowners.”
A house typically costs about $45,000 to build, he notes, adding that the group raises the money to build it by having fundraisers, getting grants from cities such as Aurora and donations from companies such as Lucent.
To become a homeowner through the Fox Valley Habitat for Humanity program, candidates simply contact the group, DeVito says.
“Then they’re interviewed by our family-selection committee, the committee brings their history to the board, and the board approves them,” he says. “Then it might take about a year for the family to get a house.”
If they’re accepted, the prospective homeowners need to put in 500 hours of “sweat equity” working with the group, he says, not necessarily on their house.
“That’s nice because you get to meet the family at the construction site,” he says.
“I remember on the first house I worked on, the homeowners were the nicest people and they tried to help as hard as they could. They didn’t have any carpentry skills, but they would clean up all the time.”
Turning over a finished house to a family is especially rewarding, DeVito says.
“One of the things that hooked me into the group was going to my first dedication of a completed house and seeing the look on the family’s faces when they get a Bible and a key to their house,” he says.
“Also rewarding is seeing how well the homeowners maintain their homes and care for them. And there’s other nice ways the families show their appreciation. One of the kids of a family we built a house for has gone to college, and now he’s with a Habitat chapter and that’s neat.”
DeVito also enjoys the camaraderie he has with the other volunteers.
“We’re almost like a family,” he says. “We’ve become good friends.
“A group of us, for the last three years, have been taking our vacations in Americus, Ga., for a week or two helping to build houses down there. That’s where the national headquarters for Habitat for Humanity is.”
The Fox Valley group has 25 members on its board and “hundreds of volunteers who help out,” DeVito says. “Some come out every weekend, while others come out once a year.”
DeVito adds much to the Fox Valley group, his fellow volunteers say.
“When people really get into Habitat for Humanity, we say that they contract `habititis,’ ” past president Rick Johnson says. “Nick is representative of that. He is truly devoted to the group and brings much enthusiasm to the job.
