Women inspire women with RV renovation project

ELKHART, Ind.--- The Elkhart Women's Alliance is bringing women in the RV industry together by starting a new project. Calling it Drab to Fab, the women are completely renovating a 2007 model travel trailer within six months. 

Susan Carpenter, the Alliance President, created the program with the thought of how women can come together. She mentioned it took a lot of thought, but the eureka moment came where many of us do our best thinking.

"I stepped in the shower one morning and kept on thinking about what can we do to bring women together in the industry," said Carpenter. 

Carpenter, along with the lead on the Drab to Fab project Tracy Anglemeyer, is bringing a group of women together to rebuild a 2007 Crossroads Zinger travel trailer. Any experience level is welcome to join the project, with Anglemeyer explaining they want to inspire those with less experience to learn a new set of skills. 

"We all have skills that we don't know about what we're doing on this project, but we have a lot of people with the knowledge so they are coming to help and educate at the same time. So we're inspiring the ladies to learn new skills during this project," said Anglemeyer. 

With 38 sponsors the support has been immense for the Elkhart Women's Alliance. Both parties share the same goal, to unite the RV industry overall by getting women out of their comfort zone and recruiting new talent into the RV industry.

"There's a lot of skills in the RV industry and across all segments of business that women can thrive in. So just because they've never done it doesn't mean they can't do it," said Anglemeyer. 

With one build session under their tool belt already, volunteer builders like Deenna Sieggreen are already enjoying the camaraderie in the group. Meeting new people and learning their reasons as to why to they joined has been the most enjoyable so far. 

"There were so many attendees, with so many different ideas on how we can elevate women. Not just the industry, but in the area and country. So getting all the women together with their prospectives was not only empowering for me but the others there," said Sieggreen. 

The six-month project will be unveiled on March 3rd at the RV Hall of Fame. Shortly after, a raffle will be held to give away the trailer with proceeds going back into the Elkhart Women's Alliance for future projects like this one.