Volunteer vacationing, or taking a vacation to do volunteer work, is not a particularly new practice. A Google search leads to a number of well-established, non-profit organizations that coordinate volunteer travel internationally and nationally. One such organization, Global Volunteers ,has been around since 1984. The guidebook, Volunteer Vacations: Short-term Adventures that Will Benefit You and Others,was released first in 1987 and is now in its 9th edition (the Library owns the 8th edition but we’ll fix that).
But volunteer vacationing does seem to be gaining in popularity these days. The Travel Industry Association of America found in a November 2006 survey that 24 percent of respondents were currently interested in taking a volunteer or service-based vacation. Travelocity, the online travel service, surveyed 1,017 people in late 2007 and found that 17.7 percent of respondents had previously taken a vacation with a volunteer or philanthropic component and 38 per cent will consider incorporating volunteer activities in their vacation in 2008. www.travelocity.com/forecast2008
This Wednesday night February 13 at the Main Library, 145 Washington Ave., one such volunteer traveler, Jane Stanfield, will present a slide presentation on her year of volunteering around the world. The title of the presentation is One Magical Year—Volunteer Vacationing Around the World and will include highlights of her travels through 11 countries on six continents. The program is at 7pm in the Library’s Community Room and is free and open to the public. Travel on down.
Posted by TG, Main Library
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