The Resource Foundation organizes several volunteer trips each year to visit member agencies in Latin America.  Trips last 7-10 days and incorporate both project work and tourism.  In Honduras, for example, participants help dig ditches and lay pipe for potable water systems in mountain villages.  They also get to see sights in Tegucigalpa, the country's capital, and visit the magical Mayan ruins of Copán.  In El Salvador, trip volunteers can help build houses or work in the El Imposible National Park tracking species, reforesting and helping neighboring communities.  After their work is completed, volunteers visit the Park and the impressive Masaya volcano.  And in Costa Rica, volunteers help rebuild an ecological corridor that stretches from the coastal mangroves up to the highland cloud forest.

The trips offer the adventurous a unique opportunity to dive into the culture and life style of the target countries, rather than skimming the surface as tourists.  For most, it is a life-altering experience: as they work alongside the modest families, they are moved by the generosity and spiritual richness of those whose lives are a daily struggle to provide a better future for their children.

The cost of a trip is approximately $1,000, including airfare, in-country transportation, lodging and meals.  Participants are expected to raise at least $2,000 each to support the organization that is hosting the delegation.  The challenge may seem daunting but with the collaboration of family, friends, relatives, colleagues, neighbors, your employer, church or temple and other religious and social organizations, most volunteers reach the goal.  In many cases, corporate matching gift plans will help you double the funds you raise.  The Resource Foundation will provide you with descriptive materials and other back-up assistance.

If you are interested, over 21 years old and in good health, please contact us.  If you cannot participate in the adventure but would like to collaborate, please see Give a Hand Up to make a donation.

The little girl pictured to the right is from the Honduran village of El Pinolito. For the first time she is able to bring fresh drinking water to her family. For over 25 years her village has pleaded for a water system and today, it has become a reality. Situated high in the rural mountains of western Honduras, many small villages like this one struggle with the most basic of needs. Lack of education, unemployment, poor health care, and contaminated drinking water are among their daily concerns.

By the time we reached the work site, more than 3 kilometers of 3" PVC pipe had already been brought down the mountainside to the place where a treatment tank was being constructed. The project itself is a gravity-fed system. Water treatment consists of basic chlorination, an effective approach in destroying infectious parasites that cause gastrointestinal illnesses, which are responsible for so many deaths here. And once the system is completed, APP will have trained the community in the treatment of the water and the on-going maintenance of the system, thus turning the ownership over to the village.

As we were excavating the site where the tank was to be located, an elderly woman, obviously moved by our presence there, picked up a shovel and began to dig with us. It was then that I understood what this system really means to them. It means no more sore necks and shoulders from carrying heavy jugs of water on their heads, it means more time to spend raising children and tending to crops, it means healthier babies, it means a better life.