Fixing shutters?

Caulking baseboards?

After a long rainy day of work on a newly built house, it's no problem for Leanne Kelley.

Kelley, 17, of Bellevue, won't need to hire a handyman if something goes wrong with a future home. The teen can do it herself.

"I think a woman can do whatever they put their minds to," said Kelley, a junior at Northgate High School. "It's not just men --we can do it too."

Kelley joined 25 of her female classmates May 8 to put the finishing touches on two new Habitat for Humanity houses in Duquesne. The Northgate trip, funded by the Allegheny Intermediate Unit, was part of National Women Build Week and designed to open the teens' eyes to alternative career options.

Traditionally, women are less likely to enter into careers such as architecture, plumbing and construction related fields, said Daniel Paul, program coordinator for Career Dynamics Youth Workforce Development, a program through the AIU that promotes career development.

"It's a very practical project because it's a hands-on activity where they can learn and at the same time tie in the importance of community service," Paul said.

"I try to stress to these girls that women getting into these nontraditional careers can get very good entry level wages."

The activity was the brain-child of Northgate physical education teacher Norma McGinnis.

Earlier this year, she decided giving monetary donations to charity wasn't enough of a contribution and signed up to work on a Habitat house. After spending a day on the Duquesne site, she knew the experience could be life changing.

Once Paul volunteered grant money he had received from the Department of Transportation Federal Highway Administration to help fund transportation, McGinnis gathered a group of juniors and seniors to work with the female homeowners laying vinyl flooring, affixing baseboards and installing shutters for a day.

Abby Klicker has helped her parents do various odd jobs around their Avalon home and knows the skills she learned in the Karl Street homes are valuable not only in the workforce, but also financially as a future homeowner. Klicker, 16, spent her morning countersyncing nails in preparation of finishing the baseboards.

"It's definitely pretty cool," said Klicker, a junior at Northgate. "Some girls feel, in our society, we can do what we want to do.

"This gives us the opportunity to know what to do if we ever have a house."

Building these women's confidence was key to the project, said Maggie Withrow, executive director of Pittsburgh Habitat for Humanity.

"The emotional experience for me is watching young girls to be allowed to do what I wasn't allowed to do in the 70s," Withrow said.

"Our goal is to look at young girls and see them exited and saying 'hey, I can do this.'"