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Audio Transcript
RV Care-a-Vanners
BALDWIN, MICHIGAN
Host Intro: The work of Habitat for Humanity can't happen without community volunteers, local people who pick up hammers in partnership with would-be homeowners. So far, across the U.S., these volunteers have helped build more than 30,000 homes. And out there, somewhere, on the road right now is an unusual group of mobile workers – retirees, mainly – who have taken to the highways in their RVs to help build homes with local Habitat for Humanity affiliates. They're called the RV Care-A-Vanners and they boast more than 700 active volunteers. Elana Hadler reports...
Narrator: Eight RV's, and just as many cars, are parked in Gary and Sandy Dode's yard in Baldwin, Michigan, the county seat of Lake County, a rustic resort area dotted by a dozen lakes. They've permanently installed RV hook-ups on the property, an undulating acre where RVs rest beside the Dode's cabin or down by the small lake at the foot of their yard. This is the Dode's twelfth summer hosting the RV Care-A-Vanners. At 6:30 a.m. the RV'ers emerge from their rigs anxious to start the day ...
AMBIENT SOUND
Narrator: These retirees, all in their 60s and 70s, were strangers a week ago, but by now they act like old friends. The Care-A-Vanners came to Baldwin to help build a house for a young couple and their three boys, a family that now lives in a one-room mobile home. It's common for the Care-A-Vanners to start and end each day with devotions. Before they leave for the construction site, Walter Wilts leads the group in a prayer...
Walter Wilts (with group): Thank you God for a fresh canvas each morning. Help us to make each day a lovely painting to return to you at night. And now we pray as Jesus taught us saying: Our Father who art in heaven, hallowed be thy name, thy kingdom come, thy will be done, on earth as it is in heaven ....
CONSTRUCTION SOUNDS
Narrator: At the site, the team splits. The house sits at the end of a dirt road on a pretty wooded lot. The trees provide a thick shield from the few scattered neighbors. Walter Wilts and his wife, Dorothea, set to work on the back stoop. This is a significant build for them – they donated the money for the house as a birthday present to each other – they both turned 70 this year. The Wilts, who emigrated from Germany to British Colombia a decade ago, aren't full-time RV'ers like some in the group, but for each of the past seven years they've spent up to half the year building houses with the Care-A-Vanners...
Walter Wilts: The most, let me say, hands-on activity I had had might have been to hang a picture in the living room. So, absolutely no experience. It is traveling combined with some purpose and that's what attracted us I think. And once you get it, you get the virus.
Bob Busch: Have you heard about the bug?
Chuck Ekstrom: Yeah they're all over.
Care-A-Vanner Bob Busch
Bob Busch: It's a terminal affliction known as infectious habititus, for which there's no cure. The only therapy is hitting a hammer.
Chuck Ekstrom: Which is very inefficient for killing bugs I might add.
Bob Busch: Anybody have any chalk for a chalk line?
Narrator: Bob, 77, has been working with the Care-A-Vanners 35 weeks a year for the past four years. He's worked on nearly 100 homes. This winter he's following the Wilts' lead – he's funding a Habitat house in Florida, in memory of his wife.
Bob Busch: For me it's payback time. I've been very richly blessed in life, not wealthy, not with money so much – family, friends, comfortable as far as money is concerned. But, it's payback time. I owe it.
Chuck Ekstrom: You just wonder, there are probably a million motivations for why people do what they do.
Narrator: Care-A-Vanner Chuck Ekstrom...
Chuck Ekstrom: I'm a missionary kid out of a missionary background. My whole life has been that "you serve," you do this – there's an evangelicalism to it. Which in the heritage I grew up in did not involve helping people. Kinda strange, you're going to win them but you're not going to help them. I guess I rebelled against that. The way I read the Bible it says you help. So I think we ought to be helping. You know I just did a build where they did eleven house in two weeks and there's something very satisfying about starting with flat floors and in two weeks dedicating a house. The Care-A-Vanners rarely see that. Usually we come and work on a house for a couple of weeks and go on and work on somebody else's house. But to go through the whole process was very satisfying.
AMBIENT SOUND-HOUSE TOUR WITH DICK POOLE
Narrator: Inside the house, first-time care-a-vanner Dick Poole takes a break from sheet rocking to give a tour. Dick and his wife Liz, both 65, had been traveling the country for five months when they discovered the Care-a-Vanners on the internet and wanted to try it.
Dick Poole: I've got information overload right now.
Narrator: At around noon, Janelle Ashebrook arrives at the site to help build the home that she and her family will soon own. Habitat homeowners have to work for their homes. The homes are sold at no profit and financed with no interest loans, but in order to qualify, homeowners must invest hundreds of hours of sweat equity. Janelle hasn't missed a day on the site.
Janelle Ashebrook: We're real excited. We're antsy. We were in the process of getting married .. we've been married for about three weeks.
Narrator: You're supposed to be on your honeymoon.
Janelle Ashebrook: Oh, this is our honeymoon. I'd rather do this than be on a honeymoon.
Narrator: While Janelle joins the others working on interior construction, 65-year-old Tom O'Toole spends his day on the roof. Tom is the loner of the group. He hangs back during devotions and tends to keep quiet amid the banter and jibing that the others seem to thrive on. He's also one of the hardest-working volunteers. In his year as a Care-A-Vanner he's traveled to seven states, volunteering nearly full-time to help build homes ...
Tom O'Toole: Not too long before I became a full-time RV'er I was a suburbanite with a very nice house and all the typical social things. I don't feel much a part of that anymore – it's a little foreign to me. For the life of me I can't imagine going back to regular work-a-day world. And I guess a lot of people never get to the point of feeling that way, but I, um.... golf to me right now seems sorta silly. But I'll almost defend to the death the right of people to go out and enjoy golf because there's nothing wrong with golf but I'm just talking for me. I'd just rather hit my thumb with a wayward hammer than try to hit a golf ball. I was no better at hitting a golf ball than I am at hitting a nail, by the way, but so be it.
Narrator: The Care-A-Vanners put in a seven-hours hanging sheet rock, finishing the siding, winterizing the roof, before they return to the Dodes to wash up, nap, and prepare for dinner. Sandy Dode finishes setting up the dinner table and takes a minute to relax on her rocking chair. On top of playing hostess to the volunteer team, making sure the RV hookups are in working order, and organizing evening meals, Sandy is crew chief on this build...
Sandy Dode: I know I have to get up every morning, I know I have something to do. And it has to get done and it's important, like any job. I used to think I wanted to quit work and be free, and now I found out I will never not work, whether it's for pay or volunteer. I don't think we're retired. We've changed what we're doing and we're not doing as much for pay. I feel bad for people who have nothing but themselves to do things for I guess.
AMBIENT DINNER SOUND AND SINGING GRACE
Narrator: By six o'clock it's time for dinner. Betty Cash leads the Care-A-Vanners in grace before they sit down to eat. It's an eclectic mix of food – taco salad, corn on the cob, chicken and dumplings, and bratwurst – the Wilts' contribution from their native Germany. Sandy Dode makes sure everyone is seated and eating before she serves herself ...
Sandy Dode: I've always had a beautiful home, my children have always been fed and clothed and warm, and I can't imagine – I still get choked up thinking of a mom putting her kids to bed cold. And so giving back a home is probably the most fantastic thing I can think of doing.
Narrator: I'm Elana Hadler in Baldwin, Michigan.
