RVers Answer Volunteer Call

A former corporate executive, Jan Elmo now spends her days traveling the back roads of North Carolina in her RV, sharing stories with impoverished children. Jan is the backbone of Read and Feed, a nonp0rofit group that seeks to feed the brains and imaginations of young children through reading. Jan’s RV has allowed her to reach often forgotten children who live on tiny farms and back-country hollows.

Jan is one of many RV owners who embraced volunteer travel long before it became the hot new tourist industry it is today. Travel agencies the promote volunteer tourism ask you to plunk down anywhere from a few hundred to several thousand dollars to spend your vacation building schools, teaching children to read or digging irrigation ditches with farmers in impoverished areas. Such “feel good” vacations may just be catching on with many magnanimous Americans, but they’re old hat to members of the RV Nation.

RV owners have been combining good deeds with leisure time for decades. The independent, self-contained living capabilities of RV motorhomes and RV travel trailers make it easy for RV travelers to venture to and work in remote sites and communities. RVers don’t have to worry about a lack of basic services or bed space because they bring everything they need with them. For RVers volunteering offers the opportunity to give back and build friendships while rebuilding communities.