Answering the Call to Serve

Nicknamed “Roaming Laboring Devoted Saints,” the Community of Christ RV Association has been answering the call to serve since 1995. From Florida to Washington they have approximately 90 members covering at least twelve states.

They recently left the Joseph Smith Historic Site in Nauvoo, Illinois, after accomplishing a large amount of work. Like the Nauvoo of the past, if day-to-day tasks are not taken care of, things quickly fall into disrepair, which is why few buildings have survived. The RV Association helps to break this natural order of things.

“There’s so much out there to be done and we’re ready to do it,” said Don Winship, president. Don has been a member since the group’s 1995 beginning, twelve years ago, and he is almost 70 years old now. Most members are close to his age. Not one member is younger than 58 or older than 84 years. Don’t let their age fool you.

At the Nauvoo site this group had various jobs they wanted to complete. They wanted to spruce up the Smith Family Cemetery. Old posts were replaced and a number of benches were stripped and resealed, making them look almost new. Many of the bricks of the walkway were sunken into the ground from the sand eroding from underneath, lifted up by roots, or just broken and badly in need of repair.

They also worked on walkways around the Homestead and around the Red Brick Store. They installed a new brick walkway leading from the Red Brick Store to the privy behind the building. They also filled potholes in the gravel roads.

“We really appreciate what they do; they save us thousands of dollars because we’re so short handed,” said Chuck Tripp, Nauvoo Historic Site coordinator. “They’ve been coming for three or four years, and we ask them to come back every year.”

They save thousands of dollars and don’t have a salary because it’s not about the money, “[it’s] the satisfaction of seeing things better off than when we first got here [and] the appreciation of those we’ve done it for,” said Winship. The association is a nonprofit organization. The only types of payments received are $200 for tool depreciation and an evening meal. Breakfast and lunch are the members’ responsibility, while snacks are brought via the “roach coach,” as it is called.

Recently the association worked at the Liberty Hall Historic Site in Lamoni, Iowa, saving the Community of Christ $8,000. They completed most of the job on April 4 after performing major renovations to the basement. “Work needed to be done and they did it,” said the site coordinator, Martha McKain. They installed a new sump pump, built a new retaining wall for the foundation, replaced the door to the entrance of the basement, and put in a new window, just to name a few things. They are currently stripping the paint off the old schoolhouse and are going to repaint it.

Winship welcomes anyone to come and help their band of wandering workers. You don’t have to own an RV to join the association or even be 58 years old.

The RV Association travels between 8,000 and 12,000 miles a year, so they are constantly on the move from site to site. If you have any questions, go to their Web site http://cocrvclub.braveheart.com.

—Joe Oxley reporting