Hogs and Kisses is a micro-sanctuary that opened its barn doors in Charlottesville in 2021. This year, Madison House is partnering with the farm to give UVA students an opportunity to volunteer with the seven pigs, five rabbits, and two turkeys! Click to learn more about Hogs & Kisses and the volunteer experience.
Madison House’s Creating Assets, Savings, and Hope (CASH) program works to train and coordinate student-volunteers to provide free tax preparation for low- and moderate-income community members…This year marks 15 years since the launch of the C’ville Tax Aid Coalition — a partnership including Madison House and the University of Virginia Community Credit Union that is coordinated by the United Way of Greater Charlottesville. Since its inception in 2007, the Coalition has generated over $35 million in direct economic impact for the Charlottesville area community.
As a first year at the University of Virginia (UVA), Chelsea Li (CLAS ‘20) wanted to soak up all the opportunities that the University had to offer. She found herself exploring new clubs and classes and was especially eager to be in the community. “In high school,” she said, “I felt as if I was missing a lot of the learning that happens outside the classroom.” This desire to stretch her curiosity across disciplines and interests, along with an intrinsic desire to uplift those around her, was what first brought Chelsea to Madison House.
The House has long been a place where students can come to find or rediscover themselves and their place within the community. This held true for Paige, who shared that “it gives me peace of mind knowing that I am a good swimmer but that's not what defines me. There's so much more to life, like helping others. My time at Madison House has allowed me to see that.”
Kruse, from Ridgeland, Mississippi, is a fourth-year student in the McIntire School of Commerce. She initially got involved in the program because of her prior experience in advocacy work.
“Ultimately, the goal of the program is for students to learn about environmental science through a native lens,” Kruse said. “Maelee Hearington, another UVA student, and I wrote the curriculum to focus on science, social activism and social justice. We also provide additional resources like workbooks, markers, easels and notebooks.”
UVA Professor Kate Stephenson combines community engagement and writing skills in her first-year writing requirements. Essentially, her courses focus on community-based learning, which Professor Stephenson describes as the “intersection of activism and coursework”. Read more about the benefits of community-engaged learning as shared by Professor Stephenson and her students.
For Bonnie Gordon, community engaged learning, public service, equity, and Madison House are all intertwined. She is trained as a music historian but has spent much of her time at UVA thinking about community engagement in the curriculum and as a co-curricular endeavor. She says that Madison House has been a key partner every step of the way. Read more about how innovative curricular design, service opportunities, and collaborative partnerships work in harmony to enhance the student learning experience and benefit the community.
Madison House is the volunteer center for students at the University of Virginia. Its volunteers and partners have demonstrated great vision and resilience in the face of this global crisis, leading the pivot to virtual volunteering, and developing innovative approaches towards meeting the critical needs of our shared communities. Our programs continue to provide critical mental health support services, remote tax prep for low-income families, safe virtual tutoring for the most at-risk students in local public schools, and virtual support to UVA nurses and medical staff.
The Cville Education Equity collaborated with Youth-Nex, Madison House, and the Equity Center offers resources for teachers and families across the Charlottesville area. The website offers anti-racist curriculum for teachers, virtual education help for families, and food resources for those experiencing food insecurity.
“Basically, we were all having a conversation about how to help area youth and families at this time," UVA Equity Center Director of Community Research Sherica Jones-Lewis said.
Dodds has been working with Madison House’s Latinx and Migrant Aid Program, LAMA, at its Cherry Avenue site. Each week, volunteers work on homework one-on-one with children, in a pair that is sustained throughout the semester to facilitate close bonds between tutor and student. […]
“That is the best and most accurate way to learn about the U.S.’s Latinx community,” she said. “It contextualizes our studies in a way that makes them even more real; having met immigrants who have gone through the struggles we are learning about in class with guest speakers and articles about immigration and xenophobia makes the issues so much more real to use and helps us humanize the statistics we read about in articles.”
