RV Care-A-Vanners travel from project to project

ASHEBORO — Phill and Marsha Craft aren’t your typical campers. They’re Care-A-Vanners who move around the country helping at Habitat for Humanity sites.

The Jackson, Missouri, couple spent two weeks working at the McMasters Street Habitat homes in Asheboro. Then they went to visit their grandson who works at the Toyota Battery plant near Liberty.

“This is our fifth year as Care-A-Vanners,” Marsha said.

“I’ve been doing Habitat for about 30 years,” added Phill.

RV Care-A-Vanners is a program under Habitat for Humanity that requires you to have some sort of camper or recreational vehicle to move from one Habitat project to another. The campers are normally parked at local RV parks, often at reduced rates.

Another requirement for Care-A-Vanners is to commit to a site for two weeks before moving on. According to the Habitat for Humanity website section on RV Care-A-Vanners, “These local Habitats benefit from the significant skills, energy and enthusiasm of the RV Care-A-Vanners, who in just two weeks can substantially accelerate their building program and raise the community’s awareness of Habitat’s work.”

To qualify for RV Care-A-Vanners, a person must go online and provide basic information, then Habitat will do a background check. Once approved, you can find a local project site to apply for. Or you can do multiple sites across the country.

“It’s all out of our pockets so it’s nice for RV parks to offer reduced prices,” Phill said.

Besides Habitat homes, the Crafts have helped at disaster sites during the past two years. Those included Hickman, KY, after a tornado, and Bradenton, FL, Asheville and Burnsville, NC, after Hurricane Helene.

As for Habitat for Humanity, the Crafts have gone several years to Dade City, FL, and Katy, TX, which happens to be near their daughter.

And, of course, they’ve done plenty of work in Missouri, their home state.

Care-A-Vanners often plan their Habitat work with sightseeing around the country. In the Crafts case, they can do Habitat sites near their relatives.

“It’s travel with a purpose,” Marsha said. “You can enjoy an area yet still help others. It’s great, a blessing to be involved, particularly with house dedications” when a family moves into a Habitat home.

“Phill has a saying,” she said, “You can’t help everyone, but everyone can help someone.”

Marsha stressed that Habitat volunteers don’t have to have skills. “Onsite, the regulars will teach you, and they’re very patient.”

Phill said he worked at Procter & Gamble as a warehouse technician and plant utilities worker. “I started doing Habitat while there. I got carpenter skills from Habitat.”

Marsha was a software implementer for Tyler Technologies, which provides school software. 

“My mother worked for a lumber yard and I spent lots of time there and picked things up,” she said. “The rest I learned with Habitat. You learn as you go.”

As for his reason for volunteering, Phill said it’s a Biblical principle to “use your time and talent to do something for others. Habitat says, ‘It’s not a handout but a hand up.’ ”

Besides the satisfaction of helping others, Marsha said they “meet a lot of interesting people in the program. We camp with them and get to know them.”

Phill said, “We meet some nice people, people with the same interests.”

And some of them are adventurous. That includes a nuclear engineer and a couple who sailed in their boat across the Atlantic Ocean. 

The Crafts have met Care-A-Vanners who work Habitat houses around the country. 

Some from the North work their way down to Florida to spend the winter months, then work their way back North for the summer.

Phill said he “got to quit working at 48,” providing him more time for volunteering.

“I didn’t,” Marsha said. “I had a cerebral hemorrhage and wasn’t supposed to be able to take care of myself.” Now she’s taking care of others.

“We’ve had a good life so it’s good to give back,” Phill said.

And Marsha added, “If it weren’t for Habitat, we wouldn’t be able to do all this.”