Last year, through the Global Volunteers website, I raised enough money for my trips to both Peru and Ecuador. The only thing I ended up paying for was my flight on both trips. How'd I do it?
I put a letter in my church bulletin and received an overwhelming amount of supplies that I was able to split between both trips for donations. I ended up bringing at least one extra suitcase on both trips filled with supplies for the children. When I signed up for the trips, I wrote a letter explaining what I was doing and why, asking for any sort of donation. I sent the letter to all my family close and extended as well as family friends, neighbors, teachers, distant relatives etc. I received an overwhelming response and received donations up until the week before I was to leave to Peru on my first trip.
I took the semester off from school last fall, and when I found Global Volunteers, it was a perfect fit. I found out about the program through a girl at my school who had done a trip to Brazil with her mother a few years ago. The fact that Global Volunteers provided me with the means to create a fundraising page was very helpful. It was perfect for me to fundraise through. Global Volunteers is the only volunteer program I found that allowed you to fully fundraise all of your costs and helped you in doing so. All other programs were much more expensive and more of a volunteer 'vacation' rather than a strictly volunteer trip.
This has been a wonderful, fulfilling memory for me. I encourage you to do it.
-Meagan Minott
