Sam and Mary Ann Durso have got to be the most amiable and benevolent slave drivers in the Habitat for Humanity organization.
Photo by ERIK KELLAR
Sam and Mary Ann Durso of Marco Island are the driving force behind Habitat for Humanity of Collier County.
Easy-going, companionable, the well-known Marco Island couple intersperse Habitat facts and figures with jokes about themselves and each other, while deflecting personal attention and redirecting it to the program itself.
But they have so stepped up production on the home-building program in the past 14 years that the Collier County chapter is the most industrious in the nation.
With a devotion to the cause almost as strong as to each other, the Dursos on Wednesday were named recipients of the Collier County Publishing Co.’s first monthly Jefferson Award for Public Service.
The umbrella company publishes the Naples Daily News, Bonita Daily News, Marco Eagle and a growing number of other regional publications throughout the Naples and Bonita Springs area.
"It’s an honor," Sam Durso said quietly, while being interviewed for Studio 55 vodcast by multimedia news editor Tim Aten.
Before and after the vodcast, Sam and Mary Ann joked about the disparity in information about them: that he’d been married to her for 39 years, but she’d been married to him for 41.
They don’t always get around to updating the information, Sam Durso says, and smiles.
No wonder. The couple put in some 60 hours a week directing the Habitat program, which completed its 1,000th house in May.
When they first volunteered for Collier’s Habitat affiliate in 1993, the group was working on its 100th house.
And it is not the only volunteer work to which the transplants from North Andover, Mass., are committed.
WEBIFIED
Mary Ann Durso, a retired teacher and biochemist, has also served as a Guardian ad Litem, was on the initial Collier County Guardian ad Litem advisory board, is on the county Housing Development Corporation, and serves on the current Ronald McDonald Caremobile Advisory Board.
A retired dermatologist, Sam Durso served from 1993 to 1997 as a Collier County Court mediator, and a St. John Neumann High board member from 1994 to 1996.
In between, he hand-squeezed resources to increase Habitat housing production from 10 homes a year in 1992 to the 125 he anticipates completing in 2007, and the 200 he aims for in 2008.
"And I thought we were moving down so he could open a (chic) little dermatology practice on Fifth Avenue South," Mary Ann jokes during a photo shoot with Daily News photo editor Erik Kellar.
It is a momentary reference to anything beyond the Habitat program, where the couples’ duel magnanimous and workaholic natures come into focus.
Sam Durso brings it right back to the program, deftly employing a personal transition.
He jokes how he was a young pup when he first got involved in Habitat.
"I think I was the only (board member) under 70," he jokes.
"This is SUCH a generous community," Mary Ann Durso says, observing how many donations of labor, money, furniture and appliances are routinely contributed. "We have volunteers that come one, two, three times a week."
The couple accepted the Jefferson award on behalf of the thousands of volunteers, she said.
However, in 2007, Habitat has received 1,700 applicants who need homes. Applicants must earn 60 percent or less of the county’s median income and must have resided in the county for at least one year.
"We always need more help. We have a great need for affordable housing in this county. We need money. As successful as we’ve been, we still need more money," Sam Durso says. "The need is growing."
So is the need to recognize the region’s valuable volunteers, Daily News Publisher John Fish said on Wednesday.
It is one of the reasons the public service award was stepped up to a monthly event.
"This is an area where so many people volunteer their time and energy, in so many different ways. There’s so many needs here that I think this program — and the concepts behind it — will help strengthen our community spirit in many ways," Fish said. "There’s a need for something like this in Southwest Florida, and I’m glad that our company gets to be a leader in recognizing extraordinary community service efforts."
Monthly Jefferson award winners will become finalists for the annual regional award to be selected by an independent panel of judges. The annual winner then will represent the area at the Jefferson Awards National Ceremony in Washington, D.C., which is one of the top award ceremonies for public service in the nation.
Founded in 1972 by Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, U.S. Sen. Robert Taft Jr. and Sam Beard, a development expert, the Jefferson Awards program now have more than 150 media partners in 90 communities across the country.
The monthly Jefferson Awards will replace the Outstanding Citizen of the Year program as the primary way the company will honor individuals’ public service, Fish said.
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