Extreme RVing!!

What do you get when you combine thousands of volunteers, a dozen or so RVs and one of the highest rated television shows?  A charitable effort between Tom Johnson Camping Center and Extreme Makeover: Home Edition!!

Beginning today, the Tom Johnson Campfire Club will head out on a different kind of RV trip here in North Carolina.  Extreme Makeover: Home Edition (EM:HE) today will announce and undertake a new build for a deserving family in Fayetteville, NC.  This build is being billed as one of the biggest undertakings to date requiring additional staff and designers which is where TJC and some RVs come into play.

There are probably millions of families across the country today who need a helping hand.  EM:HE has been providing a helping hand to families since 2003 and has been an inspiration to millions of people.  As the team at both TJC locations has worked hard to prepare RVs and make arrangements to help EM:HE I thought about why the show is so popular and why do I myself like it so much.  There have in the past been criticisms of the show but its core theme is what makes this country so great.  Even now, as the country and individuals struggle on a daily basis, where else can you find thousands of volunteers combining efforts with various business entities to volunteer time and resources to help a group of people they do not even know?

I realized that the coming together of complete strangers to help each other or one family is the same spirit you see in RV campgrounds across the country on a daily basis.  There has never been a time when I have been in an RV campground and needed help, that there was not someone there to lend a hand.  On our first ever trip with a fifth wheel at the end of 7 hours of driving we were trying to back this 38 foot Forest River model into an impossibly angled campsite in Disney’s Fort Wilderness with two dogs panting in my ear, my 2 ½ year old wanting out of his car seat and my poor Wife listening to me tell her she was crazy if she thought I could make an RV bend in half.  Out jumped our soon to be neighbor who was an owner of an RV dealership in Canada who provided me with the directional assistance to magically slide the fifth wheel into its site.  When problems developed with various motorhomes over the years there was always a collective pool of RV knowledge shared by owners camping around us to help troubleshoot and fix the problem.  And we too have provided the same kind of assistance.  Sometimes it’s as simple sharing marshmallows with a family who forgot to pack them, that keeps their kids happy and their vacation on track.  RV travel is an adventure combined with something lost in today’s world: community.

So today we head out to Fayetteville, and we send three RVs to GA for another EM:HE shoot because in the tradition of all RV’ers, we lend a hand when we can and we participate in our communities when we can.  And just like when camping at an RV park, it’s this shared, even if temporary, community in which we come together with complete strangers and share each other’s lives for a brief period of time.  Maybe this shared experience combined with a spirit of adventure is one of the reasons people love to travel with an RV.  I know it has enriched my life and taught my children valuable lessons they would not have gotten at home playing videos games.  Tell us your thoughts on this shared community of RVers and stay tuned for TJC posts from the Extreme Makeover: Home Edition build.