Jim and I have taken on our first Workamping gig at Safe Harbor Animal Farm in Maysville, North Carolina.
Workamping can be anything from being a campground host, to running an office at a KOA campground. Sometimes it pays, often it doesn’t, but it always includes free rent of a full hookup site and other perks, like free laundry. It’s a great way to stretch your budget.
We answered an ad in the Workamper News magazine, because we thought that working here would be a great way to get some experience as Workampers. We also wanted to find out if running an animal shelter is something we might want to do for a living later on. We will have more on our findings when we finish here this week, but meanwhile . . .
During our first two days here, we were lucky to have Karen and Lee around to show us the ropes. They are seasoned Workampers and have been fulltime RVers for the last few years. They had some great advice for us:
If anyone knows of a shelter in need of help in the Western part of the country, please let us know. We may consider any position available, especially if they can provide us with a site to park the bus and restroom/shower facilities. We would love to work with exotic animals, horses, or dogs/cats we are not very picky. Our girls miss our farm and I would love to give them the opportunity to get an animal fix again.
Thanks, and Merry Christmas
Thanks for commenting Jody! Good luck finding that gig, we’ll keep sharing anything we find on the Facebook and LinkedIn workamping groups.
If you think that you would be interested in animal sheltering work as your future vocation, plan to visit the Best Friends Society’s sanctuary if your future travels take you through Kanab, Utah, which is in canyon country in southern Utah. They also have a great website! I’ve been a member of their Network for some years.
I would also recommend that you read “Redemption” by Nathan Winograd, which will give you the big picture on the history and current state of the animal welfare movement in America. Believe me, you want to know the players and why they have the positions they do. Otherwise, it might be for you like it has been for me, having the feeling that you have come into the movie half-way through.
You might also check out http://www.petconnection.com, which I found during the pet food recall. Great blog. Great information. You could probably link your tripawd site with them.
I’m excited that you are considering this and are working with a shelter. The animals need good people like you guys on their side. I am currently doing my first foster of kittens from the county shelter. Two of the four went back last Monday and when I got there on Wed. afternoon for my usual stint, I was just in time to see another local artist adopt one them. Yeah!
Hope you’re having a great Thanksgiving weekend!
Susan
Rene,
Lee and I hope you guys had a wonderful time at Safe Harbor.
It was great to meet you both and maybe our paths will cross again sometime and we can share a story or two about our travels.
The best to you – all –
Enjoying life in the fun lane,
Karen
That’s great! Best of luck to you both. What a way to try out a possible future “career”!
Happy Thanksgiving to both of you and Jerry.