Agency Spotlight: Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County
Habitat for Humanity of Ventura County was started in 1983 and began as a way to help people in our community achieve strength, stability and independence through safe, decent and affordable shelter. Habitat Ventura serves low-income community members throughout Ventura County. The organization began by working on home repairs in Ventura County, and 10 years later in 1993 their first new home was built with the help of dedicated volunteers. Both the new home construction and home repair programs continue today, with volunteers playing an essential role in their success. The homes built as part of the New Construction program are for low-income, first-time homeowners. Their Habitat Home Repair program provides critical health and safety repairs to low-income, senior, disabled, and veteran homeowners at no cost.
Ongoing Volunteer Opportunities
Habitat Ventura’s Simi Valley and Oxnard ReStores offer volunteer shifts every day including weekends. The ReStores are discount home improvement stores that help fund our construction projects. Volunteers must be age 12-15 with a parent/guardian and age 16+ without.
On Tuesdays and Thursdays in Oxnard, volunteers can assist with Playhouse Prep which involves carpentry and painting to get playhouses ready to eventually be donated to military families. Volunteers under age 18 can help with painting but will not be allowed to use power tools.
New Construction and the Home Repair programs cover a wide variety of scopes of work, some days require skilled volunteers, and on other days any level of experience is welcome.
Other ongoing opportunities include photography at events, office interns, day-of event support, and the event team.
Annual Volunteer Opportunities
Women Build is an annual event that brings women from all walks of life to address the housing crisis facing Ventura County women and families. Women Build encourages women to give back to their community while helping Habitat Ventura make a difference in the lives of low-income families. There are volunteer opportunities for crew leads (supervise and lead event participants with painting), event support (help with set up and tear down, check-in, T-shirts, food, event activities, and other tasks needed on event day), and photographers (bring your own phone or camera, no professional equipment or experience required).
Every November Habitat Ventura hosts the Playhouse Build Blitz. This year the event will be on Saturday, November 1st. At the Playhouse Build Blitz over 20 playhouses are built during one event! The playhouses are then donated to active duty and veteran military families with young children. At this event volunteers are needed for event support (check-in, food, t-shirts, etc.), playhouse support (assembling and disassembling the wooden playhouses), and photography (no professional equipment or experience required).
Hearts & Hammers is Habitat Ventura’s annual dinner and auction fundraising event. Many volunteers are needed to help support the various needs such as Event Team support (help create the vision and design of the event, create decor, donation outreach for auction items, and ticket sales) and Day-of volunteers (decor and setup teams, event support, photography, auction support, and check-in team). The 2026 event date has not been announced yet.
Donations
Gently used items (certain décor, furniture, appliances, and building materials) to sell at the ReStores are accepted by Habitat Ventura. Please see their website for an extensive list of what can and cannot be accepted. They also accept in-kind donations for event needs: water, auction items, construction safety gear (gloves, hard hats, safety vests, goggles), and office supplies.
For any volunteer inquiries, please contact:
Emily Aud, Program Coordinator
emily.aud@habitatventura.org
805-416-0551
