RV Industry Association Staff Volunteers In Cleanup Project At Lake Fairfax Park

The RV Industry Emerging Leaders Coalition is designed to strengthen institutional industry collaboration and engagement by identifying, recruiting, and retaining emerging industry leaders and harnessing and elevating diverse emerging industry leader perspectives. As one way of fulfilling this purpose, the Coalition launched a park improvement initiative earlier this year as a way of encouraging more volunteer projects to take place nationwide.

The Coalition’s most recent park improvement effort took place just last Thursday, October 27th at Lake Fairfax Park in Fairfax, VA. Led by RV Industry Association Senior Manager of Government and Political Affairs Samantha Rocci, who is also the Emerging Leaders Coalition staff liaison, the project was the Coalition’s first regional event. The volunteer effort, which was completed by RV Industry Association team members and a member of the park staff, focused on gathering and bundling firewood for RVers who visit the park, as well as cleaning up litter. The project was the next step in the Coalition’s ongoing park improvement initiative, which began at Potato Creek State Park in May.

“We expanded the volunteer initiative as a way of encouraging RV industry companies to spearhead their own events across the country—large and small,” explained Samantha. “We wanted to demonstrate that even smaller, less handy teams can participate and champion a project.”

The Coalition hopes that, through advocating for projects like these, more RV industry leaders will emerge to champion similar park and campground restoration events across the nation. The Coalition looks forward to seeing more outdoor volunteer initiatives, regardless of the size of the team or the scale of the project.

“I want to thank the RV Industry Association team for stepping up and championing our first regional park improvement project,” Samantha continued. “In May, we said that we want this initiative to take off all over the country. Last Thursday, at Lake Fairfax, we wanted to show folks that the scope of these projects can be anything from building bridges at Potato Creek in Indiana, to bundling firewood for RVers in Virginia. The most important thing is that this industry steps up across the country to champion these projects—big and small. This industry is full of people who are passionate about serving their communities and promoting the outdoor lifestyle, and we want to help them get out there and do good.”

“Having an industry-wide volunteer initiative has been a goal of mine since 2015,” adds Michilah Grimes, Lippert’s Director of Corporate & Community Impact. “Creating positive, lasting change in our communities isn’t just about one company. Teamwork like this, within the industry, was an untapped resource until the park improvement initiative launched in May 2022. We are excited to see where this continues to take the industry partners and the communities we are blessed enough to be able to serve together.”

“Following the Potato Creek event, it is great to see the RV Industry Association leadership team take the next step towards this initiative getting legs of its own,” says Mike Gaeddart, General Manager at Coachmen Catalina. “Between the two events so far, we have a great proof of concept of what our industry can do to give back to our camping and outdoor communities across the country. We are really hoping to see some more ‘champions’ step forward with some project ideas of their own that we can help bring to fruition, whether that be locally here around Elkhart County or anywhere in the country as the RV Industry Association team did in Virginia. If anyone reading this is looking to have an event where they or their company wants to donate some time to giving back, please reach out to the Emerging Leaders Coalition team, and let’s get started on your project!”

If your company is interested in spearheading a volunteer effort, please contact Emerging Leaders Staff Liaison, Samantha Rocci, at srocci@rvia.org, as well as Coalition members Mike Gaeddart at mgaeddart@forestriverinc.com and Michilah Grimes at michilahg@lci1.com.