25 Years of Stories: Week 4: Care-A-Vanning for a Cause

By: Bea Flodeen

Summer 2013 - Habitat Care-A-Vanners

Habitat RV Care-A-Vanners are a special breed of volunteers. They travel across the country in their RVs to give of their their time and talents on Habitat for Humanity build sites. This summer, we are hosting a Care-A-Vanner build located at 1247 4th Street SW in Cedar Rapids. That's not to say this is the first time we've had Care-A-Vanners in town before. Quite to the contrary, volunteers from all over the US have rolled into Cedar Rapids to help build Habitat homes.

Shortly after the flood of 2008, the Cedar Valley Habitat board of directors decided to set a goal: 60 families served in three years. It was a lofty goal considering we'd only been completing one to two homes every year previous, but the need was so great in the community. Thousands of volunteers stepped forward to help build and rebuild. From those volunteers, particularly those who rolled in with their RVs, an idea was born.

A grant application was submitted to the Greater Cedar Rapids Community Foundation for assistance with creating an RV lot located at the construction warehouse, in the heart of the Time Check neighborhood. With the approval of the grant, ten full RV hook-ups were installed, providing the stability of a "base camp" for the Care-A-Vanners serving our community.

RVs set up in the Habitat "base camp"

Since 2009, Bob and Doris Meyer have made an annual trek in their RV all the way from Valrico, Florida to build with Cedar Valley Habitat. As team leaders, Bob and Doris arrived first at the Habitat RV lot, leading the charge as seven additional couples joined in, from locations including North Carolina, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Minnesota and South Dakota.

For the last two weeks, Care-A-Vanners have been out on the build site every day, constructing walls, putting up blue-board, setting trusses and installing siding. The family of three who will move into the home this fall have provided several lunches for the volunteers who have traveled so far to serve. In so doing, the Habitat RV Care-A-Vanners create for themselves a sort of long-distance family among the other RVers they meet and work with season after season.