Summer volunteering with room and board included?

Question

This summer I have to volunteer at a nonprofit as a condition of a scholarship I received. I don't have a lot of money to do this on, though, so the ideal thing would be if I could work for an organization that would provide me room and board while I was working for them.

Does anyone know of any organizations or websites that list organizations that provide room and board to volunteers? I'm interested in both US and international sites.

I'd rather not volunteer locally (my parents live in a rural area, there simply aren't any organizations I'm interested in nearby and I don't want to live at home for a variety of reasons.)

I don't really care whether I go abroad or not, but I was hoping for suggestions on places in the US that would give me room and board while I worked there. I do have some marketable skills (mostly with children) and have done a lot of work with non profits.

Answer 1

You do NOT have to pay to volunteer locally. VolunteerMatch (http://www.volunteermatch.org), Idealist (http://www.idealist.org) and CraigsList (http://www.craigslist.com) all list volunteering opportunities with thousands of organizations, and NONE of them charge for volunteering. Also, contact your local volunteer center; you can find this via the Points of Light Foundation web site (http://www.pointsoflight.org/centers/).

I suggest you look for volunteering locally. Going overseas at your age is an option only if you are willing to pay -- and the fees are quite high. Organizations that don't charge fees for volunteering, such as VSO Canada, UN Volunteers and the PeaceCorps are looking for people who can work (read, write and speak) in a language other than English, who have skills and experience that can lead to local people generating income, better feeding their families, improving children's health, etc., or that can lead to the transformation of key institutions, such as government, universities/schools or NGOs. They are looking for people who can commit to a two-year assignment, who have experience working with under-served communities, or who have a lot of experience in very diverse or religiously-conservative communities. The average age of volunteers in these organizations is over 30 (for UNVs, it's 38).

The goal is to give local people jobs and keep money local -- hence why short-term placement agencies charge volunteers, or require these volunteers to pay their own way (flights, in-country transportation, health insurance, accommodation, food, security, translators, training, staff to supervise and support them in their service, liaisons with the police and local officials, etc.).

Here is a web site that can help you learn more about the skills and experience desired by long-term placement organizations, and how you can gain that experience locally. It also lists the various organizations that don't charge for volunteer placement (but require a great deal of experience -- the average age of a UN Volunteer is 38).
http://www.coyotecommunications.com/volunteer/international.html

There is a listing of the more-than-30 member organizations of the International Volunteers Program Association (IVPA) that is a good place to find reputable volunteer-for-a-fee programs -- programs where you don't need to have much experience in order to participate, and the placements are just for a few weeks or months:
http://www.volunteerinternational.org/

The cheapest overseas volunteer-sending organization in the USA that will send unskilled volunteers for short-term assignments (six months or less) that I've found is SCI - Service Civil International (http://www.sci-ivs.org/). I know *nothing* about them other than what's on their web site, so please don't consider the listing of this organization in my answer as an endorsement.

Answer 2

Invite some friends and have a sleepover. You can do each other's nails and do make overs and rock out to some tunes

Answer 3

www.coolworks.com...they are best place to look...