Help build a house

“It was my first time volunteering to help build a house. I know nothing about construction, but I was warmly welcomed and put to work. In this case, the project was nearing completion – after only 8 “volunteer weeks” the house was ready for indoor finishing work. I spent two and a half days wielding a paint brush, coating countless feet of trim and interior doors with coat after coat of semi-gloss paint. It was not exactly challenging, but it was work that needed to be done and it was a task that felt safe and comfortable for me. On my final afternoon, however, that changed. Without doubting my capabilities, the site supervisor assigned me and a young partner to trim the doorways. In no time, we were measuring, cutting, mitering corners and hefting powerful nail guns powered by compressed air. What looked so simple when he demonstrated for us took a lot more thinking on our parts, but we mastered it! And the result was not bad. I may have felt timid at first, but the resulting sense of accomplishment was the highlight of my tenure on that project.”

“I've volunteered with HFH about 10 times here in Denver. It has been a great experience every time, I always walk away feeling like I accomplished something good that day. I've done 1 new construction day, 3 days on existing home repair sites, and about 6 days at the warehouse. You get to choose which you're doing when you sign up for a date on the website, they don't force you into any particular job just because you're a volunteer. I liked the warehouse jobs during the winter time, as I have no tolerance for cold. At the warehouse you do things like painting and assembling door frames which are then shipped out to the construction sites. You're indoors all day though which is nice in January. My only complaint about the days on the construction sites was that it felt like we wasted a ton of time, especially at the start of the day. You arrive all hyped up and ready to build stuff, but then the first hour is wasted waiting for people to get organized, go over safety briefings, give you the speech about what great work HFH is doing, etc.”