What’s more meaningful than a family volunteering together? Vacation together and help improve the world. Work with other family volunteers on important community projects for one or two weeks. See how meaningful your family vacation can be when you volunteer in another culture.
Amy Kleissler and her son Jack said volunteering together in Tanzania was a highlight of their year. This was the second program for Amy, who has taken four sons to Tanzania during summer vacation. She talks about the “immeasurable value” of experiencing this culture with her children, and the gifts of knowledge and insight the […]
When 14-year-old Cassi Kay volunteered in Romania with her grandmother, Shirley and Aunt Colleen, she wasn’t aware how that experience would impact her future education. Her essay, “My Epiphany, “ submitted with six college applications, helped secure six admissions. Here is Cassi’s story: “I was fourteen when I discovered what so many search for their […]
“Returning to the Land of Their Birth” Fran and Tom Gualtieri are committed to exposing their three daughters – Nora, Geni and Dia – to all aspects of the country of their birth. In 2012, and again in 2013, the family volunteered together in Kunming, China to teach conversational skills to Chinese English teachers. They […]
Global Volunteers’ partner communities have engaged families of all ages and sizes in community development projects on service programs since 1984. The Huff family is exceptional; sharing the world of service in Romania, Poland, Peru, Ecuador, Tanzania and Ghana with their four daughters. Lisa Huff tells their story: In the spring of 2007, my husband […]
Reflections from Colleen Shannon, who volunteered with her daughter, Lauren, and two grandsons, Max and Darwin in Crete, Greece: Our family volunteer experience in Crete last month was one of the highlights of my life. Not only was it personally fulfilling, but watching my daughter and grandsons interact with the children, other volunteers and our hosts was […]
Carol Ann signed up for the Tanzania Volunteer Program with her husband, Ray, and their two teenage daughters, Mary Kathryn and Emma (19 and 17 years old). Read as Carol Ann beautifully reflects on her meaningful experience with her family volunteering in Tanzania together with Global Volunteers: “This experience is hard to put into words, but I hope that […]
After mutually experiencing a yearning to get off the beaten track, Lisa Graumlich and her daughter, Maya Graumlich, decided to make a difference in the world by becoming Global Volunteers. So in the summer of 2014, Lisa and Maya embarked on an exciting adventure to provide meaningful service to the children and community in Pommern, a […]
In the summer of 2014, Liz Turnage and her son Jacob decided to take some time out of their busy schedule to make a difference in a rural village in Tanzania. This was a difficult task given that Liz is a full-time and hardworking physician and Jacob is an active teenager and involved high school […]
In the winter of 2014, Deborah Pollard and her two children, Meghan and Aidan, embarked on a volunteer experience of a lifetime to Tanzania. They volunteered for six weeks, providing a variety of different services throughout their program – teaching conversational English and other basic subjects, doing light labor and construction, assisting the health clinic […]
This is simply an amazing experience for my daughter and for me. I’m profoundly appreciative that I had the opportunity to do some work related to psychiatry (although I still would have been happy to paint fences!). The treatment program where I did an in-service with the staff on debriefing is really pretty amazing. They were remarkably receptive, […]