Image by Knight Workforce Performance and Development Manager Tom Pitmon.

Knight Foundation employees are in the final days of the Biloxi build, and the Habitat for Humanity Web site quotes a few of us in yesterday's daily diaries section.

Biloxi – Roofing isn’t the only hot job. Crews of twos and threes worked at each house to put insulation in the attics – a job that left volunteers sweating through their t-shirts. Pilar Guzman Zavala, 29; Camila Domonoske, 19, and Julie Brooks, 40, handled the attic insulation at 607 Roy Street Wednesday. The trio earned the sobriquet, “The Attic Elves” for their ability to navigate the tight space.

Zavala and Brooks are both employees of the Knight Foundation, this year’s platinum sponsor for the Carter Work Project. “We’re getting a workout up there,” Brooks said. She described the tightrope walking they have to do to avoid stepping on the drywall, and to navigate the beams as some “quality gymnastics exercise.”

Pascagoula —Jennifer Hebert hasn’t lived on the Gulf Coast since she was a girl, but her first home was in Lafayette, La., and one of her parents is from New Orleans. “I watched the hurricanes happening on TV,” said the South Florida resident, “and I saw the devastation happening to my people. I’m a city girl, but I had to come out here, come back home, to do my part.” — Shala Carlson

Pascagoula — Volunteer Paula Ellis of Miami, Fla., has been conducting an experiment since the roof went up on the Habitat house where she is volunteering this week: what’s the easiest beverage to toss up to her fellow workers? “I do better with the Gatorade,” she said, after a few failed attempts to get a water bottle up to the roof. “Gatorade has a better throw weight.” — Shala Carlson

Pascagoula—Jessica Goldfin, a 23-year-old first-time Habitat volunteer from Miami, Fla., was well warned about the infectious enthusiasm that runs rampant at the Carter project. But still she succumbed.

“I’ve got Habititis,” she said, shrugging her shoulders. Her first time volunteering won’t be her last. — Teresa K. Weaver

Best wishes to all of the Habitat volunteers this week; here at Knight Foundtion HQ, we look forward to more stories, pictures, and video (posted here next week) upon your return.