Tomorrow two of the Galavanting gals and I will be departing on the #FollowMeAtSea Princess Cruises Twitter press trip. When first invited, I wasn’t really keen to go because I’m not an organized tour kind of girl. But then I thought it would be a fun challenge to find the most unique and unexpected things to do while on a cruise.

When we found out the ports of call a few months ago, we began the hunt for cool things to do. Since we’re only in Roatan, Honduras for one day (November 11th), and since cruise tourists have such a bad reputation for never truly seeing the local communities visited, we decided to make our day there about helping a local charity. Our contributing editor Shanna Quinn researched a reputable, effective charity for us to connect with and we began corresponding about volunteer opportunities for short-term travelers.

Elfrida Brooks School in Roatan, HondurasHonduras is the poorest of the Central American nations, and there’s an opportunity to do a little good in-between the sunbathing and rum punch.

We’ll be visiting the Elfrida Brooks School which educates 180 of Roatan’s Kindergarten through 6th graders and also provides them with nutritious meals, clean clothing, and school supplies. Check back here on Galavanting, or on the #FollowMeAtSea stream on Twitter for updates, as well as videos of our visit to the school on November 11th.

The gals and I will have a bunch of school supplies in our bags — but if you’d like to give something as well, why not donate $5 or $10 bucks directly to the school?

We set up a First Giving page on Wednesday so Galavanting readers or people following along on Twitter could vicariously join in on the voluntourism. Setting the fund-raising goal at $250 — we apparently underestimated the generosity of our webby friends! I got an email last night from Lynn Fanelli, one of the Roatan Children’s Fund board members who called another board member to check on how the fund raising was going. She said she spent a bit of time trying to convince him he must be reading it wrong since the total couldn’t possibly be up to $450 already in one day.

“I am just so excited. This school needs so much help. You will see firsthand what I mean. This means so much I cannot tell you in words how much this means,” she wrote.

Donating through First Giving is fast, secure, and your donation goes directly to the organization. For more information on the Roatan Children’s Fund, visit their website.

Donate Here >>

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Kim Mance is Galavanting’s editor-in-chief and host of the Galavanting.tv web travel series. She’s based in Chicago, IL and some of her other writing can be found at MarieClaire.com, The Huffington Post, and Babble.

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