Work for Stay Way

Inspired by the zany stories of a friend, Dan Moberger set out to chronicle the lives of WWOOFers across the United States. World Wide Opportunities on Organic Farms (WWOOF) is an organization that puts farm owners and prospective workers in touch via an extensive database. The catch? The workers are afforded a place to stay and food to eat, but no money is exchanged. More than just an excuse to get down in the dirt, WWOOF has become a way to travel affordably, to network, to learn the intricacies of the business that puts food on the table for every American, and, often, to simply survive. The Work for Stay Way offers the farmers' point of view-what drove them to accept strangers into their homes, their wildest stories, where they believe the food industry is headed-as well as their guests'-what got them to their temporary homes and why they choose to undertake such arduous tasks with no promise of monetary payment. The ideals and idioms of this far-reaching and rapidly growing group of agriculturalists are revealed throughout Moberger's journey from the East Coast to the West Coast and back. His trek reveals a welcoming sense of community among this close-knit clan, a quality not always prevalent in today's society-and by the end, readers may just be roused into taking their own adventure into the wacky world of working for stay.