Engineering major Billy Spies was just a laid-back guy until he started volunteering for Habitat for Humanity. After a weekend activity with Habitat, he's now put up a Habitat blog on the Internet and has helped to build two finished houses. The last house was for a paraplegic homeowner; the College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) took part in its special design, so a wheelchair could maneuver through it.

Billy loves what Habitat means to the families helped by the projects. He says volunteering rewards him by showing how “my education is paying off in a tangible way.” A junior at UC, Billy started the blog so other students could relate to the excitement of Habitat projects and be inspired to follow in his footsteps.

What does he do when he's not helping with Habitat? Things like trolling art museums, playing paintball games and going on geocache hunts, where gamers compete to find hidden containers, using GPS. Billy has spent most of his life in Cincinnati, but life at UC has given him a different perspective on the place he calls home. "Seeing the city in a whole new context after living here for the last 17 years is really amazing."