This year, WWOOF Canada is celebrating its 40th anniversary. That’s 40 years of connecting WWOOFers with hosts. 40 years of sharing knowledge and 40 years of stories. To mark this exciting milestone, we are telling some stories of our own. In this tell all, John Vanden Heuvel, WWOOF Canada’s founder, tells how he came to start WWOOF Canada and how it grew into all that it is today.
In the early 1980s, we were living on a 100-acre farm near the Annapolis Valley, Nova Scotia, embarking on a ‘back to the land’ adventure.
At a food coop, we met an English couple who indicated they were heading back to the United Kingdom and asked if I would be interested in taking over a fledgling WWOOF Maritimes, which only had 3-4 hosts. Those were the initial steps. At the time, I was involved with Katimivik, a Canada-based volunteer organization, along with having spent almost a year as a volunteer on a Kibbutz in Israel, thus feeling very familiar with this type of volunteering.
Where WWOOF started on our Nova Scotia farm in 1985 with John & Inge
Internationally, there is no main WWOOF Headquarters; thus, in 1985, I wrote a letter to WWOOF United Kingdom, indicating I was in the process of starting WWOOF in Canada. They then listed us as another new WWOOF organization, as did WWOOF Australia and New Zealand.
Back then, everything was done through the mail! No internet! As long as one adhered to the basic principles: organic hosts, for volunteers, free accommodation and meals, in exchange for 4-6 hours of help… It was a go!
Sending out introductory letters to organic farms all across Canada yielded new host responses. More outreach to agriculture magazines also brought further exposure to what WWOOF was all about.
Slowly, our hosts increased along with volunteers’ inquiries from Europe, Japan, the USA, and from within Canada. So the name was changed to cover all of Canada. Back then, WWOOF was known as Working Weekends on Organic Farms. At an International WWOOF conference in England, which I attended, the name was changed to World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms. It’s remarkable how WWOOF has grown into a truly global movement!
‘Word of mouth’ from current hosts to potential hosts and from WWOOFers to their friends increased the participation rate over the following years.
A page from our WWOOFer guest book and a WWOOFer with our children
An interesting statistic that surfaced was that women made up over 65% of the volunteers. Over the course of 30 years, WWOOF Canada grew to become a reputable, well-known organization contributing greatly to the organic small farm scene within Canada.
As a coordinator, I met many wonderful people and had incredibly positive experiences (which also benefited my three children). After moving to Nelson, British Columbia, in 1988, our homestead also benefited greatly from the community. However, in 2010, the time came, after 25 years, to pass it on to others to guide this wonderful organization further into the future.
John Vanden Heuvel
