Then you can’t go to Europe. Or take a holiday on the road to a raucous music festival. Or sunbathe on the beach.
It’s a summer of COVID-19, but turning the stage, while meeting other people and finding sustainable agriculture, is possible. Just look for global opportunities on biological farms.
The organization, founded in Britain in 1971, connects volunteers, or WWOOFeurs, and farms in 132 countries. WWOOFeurs come with budding farmers and curious travelers who paint a few hours a day in exchange for accommodation. Participation is free, the annual club fee ($40 in the U.S.) And transportation to the farm.
For participants in the middle of the pandemic, the organization recommends that their hosts allow volunteers to quarantine themselves upon arrival and practice physical estrangement, based on an advertisement on their website.
Potential volunteers will also have to adhere to the protection rules described through the National Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and their local government and not volunteer if they have symptoms or feel sick.
A recent search in WWOOF USA shows that nearly 1,400 hosts, many of whom function as must-have agricultural businesses, are open to volunteers. About two hundred are in California.
A farm wants to milk goats to get cheese. Another asks in the harvest of peaches and nectarines. Potential volunteers can eliminate search effects to see nearby villages they would like to visit, the animals they would like to observe and more.
At Palindrome Volunteer Farm and at the Valley Center home in San Diego County, WWOOFeurs will have to be quarantined for two weeks upon arrival. They get their own tent or caravan with an outdoor bath and shower and will have to prepare their own food and wear a mask when they are within 12 feet of others.
“I don’t ask other people to sit in a corner all day,” host Lisa Lillie said. “Our WWOOFeurs have the most productive view of the property. Your caravans overlook the sea. Our garden is Palomar Mountain.
After two weeks, volunteers are loose up to the percentage of food with the host, swim in the pool and care for rabbits while helping to set up a hydroponic farm.
Future volunteers will not allow remote paintings or studios to save them from WWOOFing, Lillie added. Their volunteers paint on site for a few hours a day and then are loose to examine or pursue their interests from home. A volunteer from Brazil took advantage of her free time to run her interior design business and be informed in English.
Vera Valdivia-Abdallah, who runs Love This Horse Equine Rescue in Mojave, has other guidelines. It houses only one WWOOFeur at a time instead of the previous four. She asks volunteers to move socially before arriving and prefers to stay at least a month to communicate with too many newcomers.
“We think the fewer people, the better,” Valdivia-Abdallah said.
Lillie also believes that WWOOFeurs choose to stay longer and more immersive, while COVID-19 rates remain the best instead of the existing week.
“People can think of WWOOFing as a position that should not be approved for only two weeks, and yet say, “Where do I need to be culturally informed and where should I delight with others?” he said. “When other people travel, it’s an invaluable education.”