Participants say they're learning teamwork as well as the basics of construction.
Sixteen high school students from The Miami Valley School, a private prep school in Dayton, Ohio, also joined the project this week. While some of their classmates are spending four weeks in Greece, Ireland and Peru, Grimes and 15 others chose to spend the same period helping build Habitat houses around the South. They're not quite ready to undertake a whole house, but they are building confidence, Grimes said. The Ohio students spent a week working on St. John's Island, S.C., before coming to Athens. All the participants paid their own way to Athens, but they're getting a little Southern hospitality.