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, Becky Young, WWOOF Canada’s former owner and Executive Director, shares her favourite moments from her time at the head of WWOOF Canada.
In late 2009, John Vanden Heuvel made me an offer to take over management of WWOOF Canada, which I enthusiastically accepted. I knew WWOOF well. Along with having WWOOFed in Australia in the early 1980s for nine months, I had also become good friends with many WWOOF hosts who lived near us on our two-acre homestead near Nelson, British Columbia.
There were many highlights from my time with WWOOF Canada. One took place in June 2010, when WWOOF Canada and John hosted Jade and Sohee from WWOOF Korea. We took the pair on a 10-day tour, visiting 21 WWOOF hosts throughout British Columbia. We were all inspired by the hosts’ knowledge, creativity, and dedication to growing food sustainably, and learned many tips to take home to our gardens.
John Vanden Heuvel (founder of WWOOF Canada), Jade & Sohee of WWOOF Korea at Laird Creek Farm
A second highlight took place in 2012, when I joined a team of international WWOOF Coordinators in San Francisco for a WWOOF. It was at this WWOOF International Meeting, hosted by WWOOF USA, where we created the Federation of WWOOF Organisations (FoWO), a not-for-profit organisation with a mission to unite, promote, protect, and support the WWOOF movement around the world.
WWOOF Meeting San Francisco, United States of America, in May 2012
The final highlight took place over ten years later when WWOOF Canada hosted an international WWOOF meeting of our own. In September 2023, at Quebec-based WWOOF host Terra Perma, we welcomed the WWOOF coordinators from around the world to our beautiful country. Fifty individuals from 21 organisations participated.
Attendees at the 2023 International WWOOF Meeting
On February 1, 2024, after 14 years at the helm of WWOOF Canada, I retired and Robin Young officially succeeded me as WWOOF Canada’s Executive Director. He, along with Catherine Dallaire, WWOOF Canada’s new Coordinator, and a newly recruited Board of Directors, began leading the organization into the future.
Hundreds of thousands of people, throughout WWOOF’s 54+ year history, have learned from hosts the importance of living sustainably, growing food organically, and supporting their local growers. It is through the willingness and graciousness of WWOOF hosts, by welcoming WWOOFers into their personal lives and by sharing their knowledge, that many individuals have been impacted in positive and powerful ways.
Becky Young
