Voluntourism--taking a vacation that includes some charity work--is a travel idea whose time has come. In our May 2008 issue, Condé Nast Traveler held the World Savers Contest, asking readers to report on their good deeds with an essay and photo documenting a recent voluntourism trip. A couple of weeks ago, we posted Beverly Orthwein's winning entry. This week, another one of our favorite contest entries.

by Jeanne Andrews

This picture still haunts me. The fact that I had to turn around and get into our air-conditioned van and drive back to our safe, clean, and protected volunteer house in San Salvador, El Salvador, leaving these children from the orphanage reaching out for us, still causes my heart to constrict. Never before have I walked away from children that I knew were in unsafe, unclean, and unhealthy surroundings, and there wasn't a bloody thing I could do about it.   

I was one of 30 volunteers who joined a mission/sightseeing trip to El Salvador with the Handmaids of the Sacred Heart in June of 2007. We were a group made up of high school students and their parents, teachers, and adults like me, who all wanted to experience a trip where we could give back. Some spoke Spanish; many of us did not. Gloria Petrone, who runs the El Salvador mission, can only be described as one of those "higher souls" that roams our planet--someone who does more good for more people on an hourly basis than a hundred people accomplish in a year. Sr. Petrone arranged for us to bring clothing and medical supplies to the orphanage in Izalco, help build a senior center in the village of Granadillas, and teach in the village of Las Delicias. A senior center was needed, she explained, because when families leave El Salvador to go to the United States, they often abandon their elders. Villagers were building this senior center--without the aid of construction vehicles or modern tools--to provide hot meals, showers, and a place for seniors to go during the daytime. We had no idea where they slept at night.