Debby McLister of North Kingstown is flanked by a couple of co-workers as she labors on the roof above the front porch. Below, Betty Gomes of Narragansett issues some instructions as she prepares to work on the deck.

The Providence Journal / Gretchen Ertl

CHARLESTOWN — Jackie Linn learned to cope yesterday.

Coping often means dealing with anxiety in a healthy way.

To the work crew building a house on South County Trail yesterday, it entailed the painstaking task of fitting baseboard trim together at right angles.

To Linn, it meant a little of both.

“I’m a nursery specialist,” Linn said. “Give me plants. Give me landscaping. I’m all over it.”

“I’m literally coping,” she said, as she practiced cutting molding at precise angles with a coping saw.

Linn was part of an all-women crew which dedicated yesterday to developing skills and putting them to work building a house for Habitat for Humanity in observance of National Women Build Week.

Linn, of Warwick, and seven other volunteers came from Lowe’s, the home improvement store on Warwick’s Quaker Lane that gave $5,000 to the cause.

They joined a cadre of women who have spent every Thursday for the past three years pounding nails, raising walls and digging holes for South County Habitat for Humanity. About 30 to 40 have participated in the volunteer effort through the years.

Susan Fuller, one of 15 regulars, instructed Linn on the delicate coping technique yesterday. Fuller, herself, had come a long way from her early volunteer days.

“I love tools and working, but nobody would ever teach me because I was a girl,” said Fuller, of Wood River Junction. “They’d take over.”

As a result, she said, “I was always afraid of power tools.”

Indeed, a number of women found the task to be a confidence builder. Women who might be too intimidated to ask questions around men were more relaxed.

“Women want to build, they want to learn and they want to participate,” said Christine Fitzpatrick, a crew chief and 11-year volunteer. “They’re willing to ask questions and not be intimidated because they don’t know how to do something.”

She found guiding them gratifying. “It’s really a lot of fun teaching women things they don’t get to do because men always take over.”

And there are other differences, she said: “We’re a little slower. We clean up our sites.”

Women fanned out yesterday to every corner of the three-bedroom Cape, which was surrounded by towering pines on South County Trail.

Some nailed decking on the front porch; others dug fitting holes for a side deck; a couple tiled the closets. Even the home’s owner-to-be, Donna Nadeau, used a tiny roller to paint the walls (aquamarine) for the bedroom of her 6-year-old son.

“I’m sad I can’t be here every day,” said Nadeau, a newly divorced mother of two who now rents in North Kingstown. She has joined the crew almost every week since work began in November.

Construction is expected to wrap up in early June, and the house looked well on its way yesterday, with the downstairs walls painted a sunny yellow and trim installed in most rooms.

South County Habitat estimated the costs of building the home at around $165,000, including the land. FaithBuild, a group of 10 South County churches, sponsored it for $75,000.

South County Habitat is a branch of the international Habitat organization whose mission is to eliminate substandard housing and homelessness worldwide by building decent, affordable homes in partnership with those in need. The local organization has built or rehabilitated more than 42 homes since the program began in 1990.

Habitat advertises the homes, and then a committee chooses the owner from a pool of applicants, most of whom have household incomes of about 60 percent of median income for the area. The organization offers potential owners no-interest mortgages and asks that they then contribute “sweat equity” toward building their own and others’ homes.

It’s time Nadeau is willing to spend.

kmulvane@projo.com