We have just met the nicest folks ever... a group of volunteers who travel here and there around the country channeling Jimmy Carter: That is, giving their time and labor to building houses for Habitat for Humanity.
While surfing the Internet one day, we landed on a site describing a subset of such volunteers. It looked interesting and valuable to us, so we signed up. Why not?
Called Care-A-Vanners, these are folks, like us, who travel about in various vehicles, but, unlike us, stop in various cities to lend their time and labor to house builds
Timing, location, and availability directed which 'build' we'd try.-- So after Orlando, Baby Beluga went west a bit and then settled in a Habitat for Humanity Campsite for a couple of weeks in Dade City, Florida. Bill and I worked some and socialized more -- let's see -- two pot luck dinners, one potato bar meal, one ice cream social and one pizza lunch, each, except for the lunch, followed by a roaring campfire beside a small pond complete with a resident alligator. We are disappointed to report that we did not meet him/her/they.
Oh yeah -- we did actually contribute to the house building. Bill painted and painted, and did something with soffits, and I primed and calked, at least for the first week. Each work day started with a morning meeting at 8 am followed by caravan trip to the construction site. Jobs were sorted out and the group all started work around 9 am. The rest of each day was work and then rest and food: Work for an hour or so, then a 30 minute break at 10 am. Work for an hour and a half, and an hour lunch break was called. Clean up began at 2:30 pm. Back to the campsite by 3:15 pm or so. Naps ensued.
Rain shut down the work on the first Friday and second Tuesday and MLK day was that Monday-- so a 5-day weekend! Not to be total slackers, Bill and I dedicated that Saturday to walking behind the Habitat for Humanity float in the Dade City Martin Luther King Day Parade. That's when the fun began:
Falling:
While walking to the parade start, I fell -- fooshed straight down -- crossing an intersection, in front of on-coming traffic. Other than not finding public restrooms, falling in an intersection has been the biggest fear of my walking career, and here it was. Bill, always my hero, stood in front of the traffic and helped me off the blacktop. Turns out I broke nothing for once (those of you who remember my other good fall will get that reference) -- but painfully sprained my left (dominant) hand. My stubbornness and need to prove my knees were only bruised and scraped like a 4- year-old's, caused us to walk the short parade route anyway. And then the pain and some remaining common sense resulted in an afternoon in an ER where X-rays confirmed no broken bones. I am exceedingly grateful that all my consumed Vitamin D and miles of walking over the years have evidently maintained some amount of bone density.
And this was my second Florida fall! Despite living where ice actually exists -- Virginia, sometimes, Idaho all winter, and Durango, frequently, I have never fallen by slipping on ice -- but in Florida -- why, yes I did. It was at the Hipcamp site we wrote about in our last post. No bodily damage done there at all, but I eventually landed right on my hip. Really a cautionary tale about broken hips in old women.
Back to this post -- the sprain took me out of the labor pool for the 2nd week, but I did join in breaks (irony intended) and lunches. I felt a lot like a very fortunate slacker!
Best part of Care-A-Vanners: We met a young woman, and her children --a daughter (age 12) and a son (10), who were purchasing and moving into a Habitat House. It's a long process for the owners, and she had put in her required 400 hours of sweat equity that forms part of her down payment. We worked with her the first couple of days we were there, and she was so excited to be able to get her kids into a home. I surely wish I could capture and describe her excitement and gratitude.
I didn't want to post the pictures of this family here -- violation of her privacy perhaps, I don't know. Instead I offer this snapshot of our little group of volunteers at the ceremony in which she received the keys to her new house.
All of the folks in the green shirts are volunteers. The folks in the white shirts are also volunteers but they were the team leaders. These folks come from all over the US, and one couple from Ontario. The fellow in the blue shirt was a local employee.
Care-A-Vanners was a new experience for us, but only for us. All these other volunteers we met have worked these builds in many places over several years. We met, for example, John and Sally, who have been on at least 5 builds that we counted as we talked with them. (The number is a guess). Here's their picture in front of the Parade Float:
We're planning a meet up with them next year in Yosemite. Can't wait.
We're so grateful to have met, and will happily stay in touch with these folks. They, like us, are van folks vs. travel trailer or 5th wheel RVers A professional cabinet maker, John has crafted an amazing van conversion. See their blog, maintained, we understand, mostly by Sally at The Spoke N Van.
There were only three couples who travel in vans at this build, us, John and Sally, and one other couple from Minnesota. It is a treat for us to talk to folks who 'get' what we're doing and how we've chosen to live. The other RV folks seem to be on a somewhat different path, RVing with really big vehicles, and our observations so far tell us that they tend to head to different places and stay put for longer than we do.
Retirement Lesson. -- we can handle falls and illnesses no matter where we are! We're happy to be Van People!
Woyaya!
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