Combine volunteering with your global vacation

Becky Rynor, For the Ottawa Citizen 

Combine volunteering with your global vacation

Jane Stanfield excavating pots on an archeological dig in Thailand as part of an Eathwatch program called origins of Angkor.

Jane Stanfield / for Canwest News Service


Jane Stanfield says the first thing you should do before embarking on a volunteer vacation is figure out why you're volunteering in the first place.

"People volunteer for very different reasons," says the 50-year-old veteran volunteer vacationer. "There was one young girl who came all the way from England to Australia. Eighteen years old, first time out of the country, first volunteer vacation, and she picked this location because it was a wildlife hospital and the literature said there would be construction with a new hospital and enclosures being created for incoming wildlife. When she heard construction, she thought that meant young men running around without their shirts on."

A volunteer vacation has come to mean travel that includes volunteering for a charitable cause. But Michele Gran warns potential candidates to be prepared to roll up their sleeves and work. She is the co-founder of Global Volunteers, a development organization now in its 27th year, which she says pre-dates the moniker "volunteer vacation."

"We do development work. We do real, serious service partnerships," she says. "If you're looking for just a cheap way to travel or an occasional volunteer shift, this is not what we do. We really put you to work."

Gran says there are also a lot more so-called volunteer vacation options out there now.

"When we started, it was Habitat for Humanity, Earthwatch and Global Volunteers," she says. "Now there are even for-profit hotels that are dabbling in this, so the whole volunteer-vacation idea has gotten a little diluted."

Gran says Global Volunteers coordinators have become pretty good at weeding out the not-so-serious candidates. But they sometimes still get fooled.

"We had a mother and daughter duo who, even after our rigorous predeparture preparations, got to India and, after the third day, they were overwhelmed -- primarily because there was no place to plug in their hot rollers for their hair. Truly."

Stanfield decided to jump into volunteer travel after receiving an inheritance when her mother died in 2004.

"I always feel so much better when I volunteer," she says. "And I had done enough travelling where I was part of a tour and I was always slightly disappointed at the amount of time that we would spend looking at things," she says. "When I would just vacation, I'd sort of run from one thing to the next. This was an opportunity to put a root in and develop a routine, to learn about what it's like to live in a community."

She had already taken a class on volunteer vacations and had grown up in a military family where travel and volunteering were the norm.

Still, she decided to test the waters with a two-week trip before embarking on a full year of volunteering.

"I went to France with La Sabranenque, which does medieval reconstructions," Stanfield says. "We were rebuilding a crumbling castle on top of a small mountain overlooking a co-operative of vineyards near Avignon. We were helping to reconstruct a retaining wall. I'd never been to France. I don't speak French other than ballet, croissant, champagne and escargot. And I had never done medieval reconstruction. And I thought, if I can do this, I can do anything."

That experience convinced her she was ready for a full year of international volunteering.

Stanfield returned to her home in Lakewood, Colo., in August 2005, quit her job as an administrative assistant for a retirement association, put her possessions in storage and her cats in care.

Armed with a round-the-world plane ticket and three pieces of luggage, she took off the following January for volunteer adventures that included caring for human orphans in Peru, bottle-feeding baby baboon orphans -- and changing their diapers -- in South Africa, an archeological dig in Thailand and many other activities in between.

"You show up, willing like a sponge, eager to do whatever they want you to do and you rub shoulders with fabulous people," she says.

Stanfield figures the year-long trip cost her about $30,000, with 224 days of volunteer work and 104 days just vacationing.

She has since parlayed her experiences into a full-time career of writing, speaking and teaching about volunteer vacations.

Stanfield has published Mapping Your Volunteer Vacation, the book she says she needed while planning her first trip (published by Where Is She Heading, it's $20 US at Amazon.com or janestanfieldwish.com). A second book is nearly written and a third is in the planning stage.

She's also planning another volunteer vacation.

"Morocco is screaming for me," she says. Because, she adds, once you do figure out why you're volunteering, "these trips are addictive."

"It's a way to help. It's a great way to pick up knowledge. I always love to volunteer on something I don't know anything about. So I'm sitting there learning. That is so key for me. I'm hungry to learn ... and volunteer vacations are an excellent opportunity, because you're normally working with someone who is either a highly credentialled professional or someone who has been doing it so long, they have so much general work experience. ... You can't pay for that."

Becky Rynor is an Ottawa writer who met Jane Stanfield when they were both volunteering to teach English in Spain.

