RITTMAN, Ohio - Paul Weir answered President Kennedy's call for Americans to join the Peace Corps and help the less fortunate. It changed not only his life, but his livelihood, too.

Weir met fellow Peace Corps volunteer Jim Neidert in the Philippines in 1967. Almost 20 years later, they put together a business to help themselves and the families of the people they had met so many years before.

Each year they buy thousands of wooden statues made in the Philippines and sell them to distributors in the United States. They import everything from 7-foot giraffes to 5-inch felines and store them in their warehouse in Rittman, located west of Akron.

Weir, 62, and Neidert, 65, both of Westfield Center, operate Weir Handmade Inc. and frequently travel back to the South Pacific country they love.

Weir knew the Philippines would always be part of his life when he arrived there in the "60s to instruct men in how to teach mathematics.

He soon realized there was more important work to do. Like fish farming. Weir also helped build a system of bamboo pipes to carry fresh water from the mountains so farmers could water their crops during the dry season.

"Those were what they needed," Weir said.

He met the carvers, who made exotic and whimsical animals and people, in 1968 at a wedding in the mountains outside Manila.

Weir left the Peace Corps in 1969 and returned to Pennsylvania. He taught school and grew organic vegetables but often thought fondly of the men he met in the Philippines and their carvings.

He would talk with Neidert about how they could sell the carvings, support themselves and provide earnings for the artists as well. In 1986, he returned to the Philippines to set up a structure.

He believed he understood what people in the United States wanted to buy and communicated that to the Filipinos.

"They know how to carve," he said. "But I knew what to carve."

One of the business' biggest sellers is the cigar store Indian, an old advertisement figure that used to represent tobacco shops but now is used as a decorative item. Weir sells them by the hundreds.

About 200 Filipinos create carvings to sell to Weir and Neidert. The pieces are mostly contemporary folk art, including fish and animals of every size and description. Some pieces are sober and serious, others are comical.

Because deforestation is a major concern in the Philippines, Weir said they plant as many trees as they cut down and carefully follow all the rules for harvesting trees such as teak.

The workers cut and rough-carve the trees in the field, using machetes made from old truck springs. After being carved, the pieces are moved to a warehouse for drying, finishing and painting. Then they are shipped to the United States.

The carvings start at about $6 for a small item up to $1,800 for the intricately detailed wooden Indians.