Adventures in Preservation

As a new Board Member I am very impressed with AIP. Their projects around the world not only support conservation and preservation of the world's built heritage but also community development and economic growth. I am excited to support AiP mission and look forward to working with them on many of their outstanding projects.

Jamie Donahoe and Judith Broeker founders of Adventures in Preservation have created an outstanding heritage restoration organization that has preserved buildings around the world that would have otherwise fallen into disrepair. In addition to the positive impact on local communities, Adventures in Preservation provides unique, once in a life time adventures for its volunteers. I would not hesitate to recommend an AiP adventure to anyone!

I had the great opportunity to participate in the Adventures in Preservation project in Serravalle, Italy. From the first phone call to the last day of the project and follow up, it was such a positive experience. I could tell from the start that these are people who are passionate about conservation and about serving others through this effort. Our hosts in Italy were wonderful, knowledgeable, and went out of there way to give the group a valuable learning experience. I highly recommend this program!

I've been interested in historic preservation for a long time, and was considering making a complete life change by dropping my current work and finding a graduate program in the field. I really wanted to know more about what the actual WORK would be like before I took the plunge. I also wanted to see if I couldn't find all the training opportunities in the real world that I'd find in a graduate program. I searched for "volunteer field school" and came across Adventures in Preservation. The name really struck a chord. I love adventures. I care about preservation. I hoped to make it to their Fairfield Plantation trip in Virginia, but the timing was off. Instead, I asked to help the organization in whatever ways that I could, and they responded quickly and kindly. The team didn't hesitate to embrace an enthusiastic volunteer, and they gave me responsibilities that both utilize my existing skill set AND teach me new ones. I'm very proud to be a part of the Adventures in Preservation team. I think the work they do is very important.

AiP far exceeded my expectations! The AiP staff is great, friendly, very helpful, and answers you back faster than any other program! Coming from no experience in archeology, I wanted to get some experience in the field for a certification program. The one week program at Fairfield Plantation was exactly what I was hoping for. Real hands on experience in the dirt by experts and great extra features including: 3-D scanning showing, masonry lessons with recreating the building site, and behind the scenes tour of Colonial Williamsburg and Jamestown. AiP helped me stay near home, stay with my budget, and helped connect me with a great local family host. The overall experience was wonderful and memorable. I will continue to check in and see what other adventures AiP had to offer and tell everyone I know about them!

Adventures in Preservation provides an opportunity for people to experience firsthand the importance and positive impact historic preservation can have. There’s nothing like actually participating in the repairing of an historic building or the archaeology of an historic site to understand how relevant heritage preservation is to the well-being of a community. As former executive director of Preservation Delaware, I saw how Adventures in Preservation’s projects offer an unforgettable experience for participants and a community as well.

Thanks to adventures in Preservation we were able to restore the now 127 year old Francis Grist Mill in 6 weeks! They provided a top notch preservationist who led the volunteers in 3 two week work shops in 2004 2005 in 2006. We have hosted many school field trips, workshops for camps and 9 successful Music at the Mill events to share our WNC heritage and history. For more information see Francismill.Org
Tanna B Timbes

It has been my privilege to be a part of one of Adventures in Preservations interesting projects in Albania and to work along side AiP’s dedicated volunteers.
Gjirokastra in Albania is a remarkable city, designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
AiP has worked in Gjirokastra since 2008, holding short term hands-on preservation workshops using international volunteers to assist in documenting and restoring Ottoman-era architecture. In 2011, AiP furthermore took the lead in a hands-on training project to repair and restore one of Gjirokastra’s most outstanding traditional tower houses, the Skenduli House.
I have attended several times and it has been a very rewarding experience, both professional, but also creating friendships for life.

I very much enjoyed Fairfield and the experience of digging where a house used to be and screening for artifacts. I love Archaeology and it is my dream to continue with this profession. I hope to come back to Fairfield and work with AiP in the future.

As someone who has interned with Adventures in Preservation since 2011, I can attest to the diversity of their programming and the true value of their volunteer vacations. After writing for them, I participated in their 2011 Glazing at the Gas Station workshop. My experience with AiP was an important factor in my decision to pursue an M.F.A. degree in historic preservation, which I will be receiving from the Savannah College of Art and Design in November. Although much of my time over the past two years has been occupied by schoolwork, I have kept my toe in the organization’s operations, supporting them and their work as I am able to.

The workshop I attended was a cooperative project with the local archaeology, preservation, and heritage organization, The Fairfield Foundation. Co-founders Dave and Thane led our group in removing glass and re-glazing garage windows of a 1930s Texaco station that is being converted into their headquarters with space for storage and community education on Gloucester, VA’s Main Street.

The experience gave volunteers experience in restoring and repairing historic windows, and underscored the “green” value of this preservation practice. The Main Street location and extracurricular activities of the project gave out-of-town volunteers an opportunity to understand historic and contemporary Gloucester, as well as to meet community members, all of whom were very enthusiastic about the project. Community – in my opinion the most important element in historic preservation and volunteer work – is strongly valued by AiP, which made for a successful and satisfying workshop. Although my schedule has not allowed it in the past few years, I am hoping that in the future I can attend another exciting and fulfilling AiP trip (especially one with The Fairfield Foundation, as their partnership with AiP continues to grow!).

Judith Broeker and Jamie Donahoe run Adventures in Preservation and are just as passionate about history and historic places as we (The Fairfield Foundation) are. Our organizations met over four years ago and teamed up on our first project in the summer of 2011, reglazing the original metal windows at the Center for Archaeology, Preservation and Education (CAPE), a restored 1930 Texaco Service Station. The next year we teamed up on a plaster workshop and last year embarked on a new (old) project at Fairfield plantation, the cornerstone site of our organization. Judith and Jamie put together amazing experiences like these all over the globe – and have been doing it for years – so having their help at Fairfield is a true honor and a great way for us to learn and grow.

At the end of August 2014 we’ll host workshop participants – known as Jammers (a play on words for preservationists) – who will not only learn to excavate and document the manor house ruin at Fairfield plantation, but also help stabilize it. Just as with other Adventures in Preservation workshops, experts instruct the participants and there is constant hands-on work to drive the lessons home. Thane, Anna, and Dave (Fairfield Foundation staff) will supervise the archaeology, but we have the great Ray Cannetti (historic mason and stone cutter), Jason Whitehead and Bill Neff (Colonial Williamsburg’s Trades Department), and Matt Webster (Colonial Williamsburg’s Curator of Architectural Collections) to handle assessing the Fairfield manor house ruin and instructing participants in the arts of lime mortar preparation, brick laying, and repairing sections of the brick foundation. You can check up on this workshop at AiP's website and our own (fairfieldfoundation.org).

The most important lesson behind this workshop is the interconnection between these things our organizations love: archaeology, preservation and education. We should not dig unless we have a plan in place to preserve what we discover. At the same time, we often need archaeology to precede the stabilization of historic buildings, so that we do not inadvertently destroy a building’s history while we are trying to save it. And most important of all, we must involve the public and share with them the discoveries. These lessons from the past benefit us all, but only if we make them accessible to everyone.