enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Jerry Dumont’s hospitality consulting business is slow, so he’s using the time to volunteer at ReStore in Portland, an operation run by Habitat for Humanity.

enlarge Jack Milton/Staff Photographer

Patricia Washburn of Wells was laid off the same week her 80-year-old father, Stewart, of Massachusetts, had a health crisis. She was able to help him with his recovery and new living situation in Portland, including setting up his laptop.

It was hard at first for Larry Tinsman to imagine that business had truly dried up. As a courier driver, he had always been busy and could work Saturdays for overtime when he wanted.

The layoffs finally came in February, and Tinsman found himself without a job after 18 years with the company, Maine Overnight Air Express, an agent for DHL. People he knew at UPS and FedEx encouraged him to apply at their delivery companies, but it turned out they weren't hiring.

"I always thought I could get another job in transportation, in driving as a courier," said Tinsman, 49.

The South Portland resident has since regrouped and is retraining in a new field – medical billing and coding – and fixing up his home between classes.

Tinsman is among the unemployed people who, stalled in a job search and hungry to keep busy, are finding productive uses of their newfound time. Many say they are volunteering with charitable organizations, getting involved in political causes, learning new skills and spending more time with family.

Tinsman enrolled in medical terminology and basic computer classes through Portland Adult Education and will take more classes in the fall. Making the experience even more interesting is that his 18-year-old daughter, Faith, is enrolled with him.

"I haven't gone to school since high school, (so) I wasn't too sure" about returning, Tinsman said. "But we got into it and it was a lot of fun. And taking it with her was fun too."

Patricia Washburn was laid off the same week in May that her 80-year-old father collapsed. Washburn had been working from her home in Wells as an online community manager for a lawyers' social networking site. Her father, Stewart, was living three hours away in Massachusetts.

Washburn, 44, is glad she had the time to be with him. It would have been more difficult if she had job responsibilities while he was in the hospital and going through cardiac rehabilitation. She's been caring for his house and finances, driving him to appointments and has moved him to Portland, where she was already planning to move before her layoff.

"I would have had to either take leave or probably quit," Washburn said. "My dad is a wonderful person. I want to be there for him. I would have had to rely on other people or pay other people to do a lot of the things I had to do."

Washburn is also looking for work in the online world and is considering going back to school to earn a master's degree in computer science. In the meantime, her father, who had been working part time as a banking consultant around New England, is edging his way back to a more independent life.

"He's going to need some ongoing attention from me, which I wouldn't have been able to do if I was three hours away," she said.

Many people who find themselves out of work are putting their energy into volunteerism.

"Volunteering is a way to gain new skills, network," said Rochelle Runge, a spokeswoman for the Maine Commission for Community Service. "That's one of the reasons people do volunteering, to get new experiences."

Jerry Dumont of South Portland has been volunteering four or five days a week at Habitat for Humanity of Greater Portland's ReStore. He accepts donations of building materials, fixes and cleans them as necessary, helps customers and records transactions.

"It gave me an opportunity to work with the public and also work with my hands, prepare and restore items. I think that's kind of interesting. I enjoy the opportunity to recycle items – and it's for a good cause," he said.

Dumont, 50, has been working in hospitality for three decades, much of it managing hotels and resorts – including a stint for "Queen of Mean" Leona Helmsley, the late New York City hotel operator and real estate investor. He started his own consulting business for companies that want to identify properties for acquisition and development, but...