When Jon and I were deciding what to do when we retired our number one priority was to travel and experience new things. But traveling around didn’t fulfill our needs completely so we considered volunteering as camp hosts a couple months a year and created a list in our minds of what was necessary for us to enjoy our time and still give back to a non-profit entity. The coastline is where we have spent most of our adult lives and settling down on a place to volunteer needed to be a place that was near water. We also wanted a location that could provide beauty, hiking, biking, other recreational activities and not be too far away from civilization. One day in 2017 while visiting our friends in Lake Tahoe we took a tour of Pope House at the Tallac Historic Site. When the tour guide told us she was an RV volunteer I made a point to question her immediately after the tour as to how I also could become a volunteer for the site. This is where our journey as volunteers for The Tallac Historic Site began. I immediately filled in an application and happy to say we were invited to work our first session during the summer in 2018.
Tahoe has beautiful weather, crisp evenings, tall green trees, lots of wild flowers and a beautiful lake surrounded by mountains capped with snow like icing on a cake. But volunteering isn’t all about playing outside and enjoying the weather. Giving back to non-profit means donating your time. It also means keeping an open mind because things that need to be done at an historic site might take some tweaking of the skills you currently have or have used in the past as well as trying new things you are asked to do that you never knew you would enjoy. We are all part of one big team! The list of things to do on this site include sharing information about the history of the site, helping maintain the grounds, teaching kids’ crafts, giving tours, working in a gift shop, hosting at special events, working in a garden, and many other things. Jon and I have volunteered in other places but we agree that the guests to the Tallac Historic Site smile all the time, are relaxed, never rushed and enjoy everything the site has to offer.
We get to meet people from all over the world and the volunteers we work with are now our friends. We spend our non-working hours with each other on or near the lake, hiking, golfing, having potlucks and all the things you might do at home except having Lake Tahoe as your back yard is pretty nice. We love it here and feel a sense of appreciation for the time we donate. The management really knows and appreciates our hard work and thanks us often with a smile. That goes a long way!
Dory and Jon
