All Hands Volunteers

If you enjoy hard physical work on behalf of people affected by natural disasters, you may be interested in using your next vacation to serve with All Hands Volunteers (www.allhandsvolunteers.com) in the United States or abroad. Unlike most groups that offer volunteer opportunities overseas, they do not charge a fee to participate.

At present there are openings to work cleaning up the damage from Hurricane Sandy in the northeastern United States, or on a multi-disaster relief program in the Phillipines. In the past All Hands has worked in Haiti, Japan and the U.S. Gulf Coast, among other areas.

These projects look as if they are geared to the very strong and fit, with sic days a week of physical work on location. Perhaps there are other more sedentary jobs available, but if so they are not mentioned on the Website.

I like to learn about volunteer opportunities that do not seem to be a rip-off. I am appalled by some of the volunteer groups that advertise widely and charge high rates to people who are willing to work without pay. That said, even All Hands says it costs about $15 per day for the housing and feeding of volunteers, and that they woiuld appreciate donations from those volunteers who can afford it. And naturally transportation to the work area is at the expense of the volunteer.

Just a note for those who like numbers--on checking my blog stats, I noted that today I have reached an all time page view total of 77,777. Since 7 is considered a highly spiritual number, this must mean something, though I'm not sure what. Anyway, thanks for reading.