I've volunteered a few times for DC Habitat. It's a great experience; the staff on-site is professional and helpful, but they also get you right to work. Getting to do real work on houses that local people will live in, and getting to meet the families is a positive and rewarding thing.
Volunteering with Habitat is a great way to bond with family or friends, or build spirit with your co-workers, so volunteer as part of a group.
I’ve volunteered for the Washington DC Habitat for Humanity several times and highly recommend helping with their efforts, for several reasons. First, it is a lot of fun. For someone who doesn’t have a lot of construction experience, there were still plenty of jobs I could do that were both interesting to me and useful to them. Since the organization attracts great volunteers, you get to chat with really interesting people while you’re on the work site. Second, they are very well organized and run a great program. The orientation covered a lot of the fundamentals of the work and also provided a good introduction to Habit’s methods (for example, I wasn’t aware of the rigorous selection process homeowners go through). Lastly, and this is more from a personal standpoint, it is great seeing the tangible product of your efforts. Over in Northeast Washington there are a few houses with families living in them that I helped build. Since my work is largely virtual bits and bytes, it is enormously gratifying see to your work become a house that will be someone’s home. If I have any criticism of DC Habitat, it is that it can be very difficult to get a weekend work slot. There is a lot of interest and competition, so you have to be quick to sign up. Fortunately, the online sign-up system is easy to use. Here’s a hint, subscribe to the RSS feed. It is a great way to find out about weekend slots before everyone else!