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.”
Val Cyphers is a fourth-year double-majoring in English and biology. Outside of her classes, Val is an ADAPT Peer Educator and a former co-chair of the program. Val also volunteers with the Loaves & Fishes Food Pantry; as a patient ambassador with Madison House's Medical Services; and is a volunteer with the Adopt-a-Grandparent program. Val has also served as a member of the University Advisory Committee on Alcohol and Substance Misuse.
University of Virginia fourth-year student Johntrell Bowles remembers how strangers’ generosity brightened his family’s holidays, and helped him believe in himself. Now, he’s determined to pay it forward.
Watch the full UVA Today video here
“I realized I hadn’t devoted enough time giving back to the Charlottesville community, even though I had grown to love this place,” said Anderson, now a first-year UVA Law student. She decided to join the Madison House Big Siblings Program, drawn to the idea of a “deeply personal volunteering experience.”
“The program paired me with Jazhara, who was 5 years old at the time, and through her I met Jojo, who was 2,” she said. Now the kids are 10 and 8, and have known Anderson more than half their lives. “Looking back, it’s amazing how many of my favorite memories involve these two kids.”
Popular Madison House program helps both adult and child Latinx migrants gain academic, applicable skills
For University students, it can be easy to get lost in the UVa bubble. Latinx & Migrant Aid (LAMA), a Madison House program, encourages students to involve themselves within the larger Charlottesville community by engaging with the region’s migrant workers.
With six volunteering sites, eight program coordinators, four community partners and 74 student volunteers, LAMA is a Madison House program dedicated to helping Latinx migrant workers and their children in Charlottesville improve their English speaking and general academic skills.
Ashley Williams is a fourth-year in the College of Arts and Sciences majoring in Human Biology. Ashley volunteers with Madison House's Medical Services program where she has worked in the Outpatient Surgery Center and Emergency Department for 2 years. She is also a Peer Health Educator, works as a Planned Parenthood Generation Action Community Organizer and has also been a CASPCA Foster Parent during her time at UVA. Ashley's other involvements at UVA include her role as a research volunteer in the Department of Neurosurgery Undergraduate Research Volunteer, a Culture of Respect Educator, and as the Mixed Race Student Coalition Outreach Chair.
“Whatever you are passionate about, find a way to get involved and commit to it! I think a lot of undergraduate students (especially pre-meds) get caught up in resume building opportunities instead of giving back in a way that is truly personal and meaningful to them. While giving back in any way is great, it will most likely only be sustainable work if it is important to you. “
“When I first got to UVA, I knew I wanted to get out of the "bubble" of the University and engage with the surrounding Charlottesville community. While UVA has a lot to offer in terms of involvement and service, I wanted to make sure that I learned more about the city and was an active, involved resident of Charlottesville. I heard about CART (Charlottesville Area Riding Therapy) through Madison House my first year and decided to try it out! From there, I became interested in taking care of children with medical needs or disabilities.
For me, seeing some of the students over the past three years improve in some of their skills and behaviors has been really rewarding. I love seeing that students at CART are having a positive experience, often are able to improve their skills, and leave the barn feeling accomplished. Besides that, I've also met many amazing people and really enjoyed getting to know them!”
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.”
Every week, University of Virginia’s Learning in Action, an initiative designed to connect students, faculty, and community partners to social entrepreneurship, community engagement, and co–curricular service opportunities, features a volunteer as their ‘Volunteer of the Week.’ Madison House has been at the forefront of service at the University of Virginia, and this can be reflected in Madison House’s consistent appearance within the Volunteer of the Week’s highlights. For two weeks in a row, Madison House volunteers have been featured by Learning in Action.
Bryant hopes to involve other students in the President’s Council, noting that many of the relationships that the University has developed with the community come from connections with students, such as mentoring through Madison House.
“Even if [students] aren't officially members of the working groups, making sure that [students] are able to come to the meetings and give input,” Bryant said. “And if we have surveys, I think student voice will be prioritized.”
The Virginia Athletics department launched ACE as a way to connect student athletes with volunteering opportunities. Currently, the program has almost 70 athletes, and last fall, the program teamed up with Madison House. Under the leadership of Rachel Clark, Class of 2019 alumna and one of Madison House’s 2018-2019 community engagement interns, ACE has made it easier to send athlete volunteers into local elementary schools.
Roughly 3,000 students a year volunteer through Madison House. Nearly 40,000 have participated since the center opened in September 1969, according to Tim Freilich (Col ’93, Law ’99), executive director of Madison House and a volunteer there during his undergrad years. In 2018-19 alone, he estimates, students contributed more than 108,000 hours to local projects, from adopt-a-grandparent programs and teacher’s aide positions to patient-care roles at hospitals and free clinics.
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“You can’t learn this type of leadership through a textbook,” Freilich says. “The experience that our 300 student leaders get as they lead their peers is probably the most valuable thing that Madison House does.”
Madison House, the independent, nonprofit volunteer center for UVA students, [was] founded (in its current iteration) shortly before Camille. This year also marks its 50th anniversary.
“My own opinion is that student response to Camille had a great deal to do with subsequent support for Madison House,” Casteen wrote. “It had existed before Camille, and its people had always had their own active lives, but the work following Camille made everyone grow up very quickly.
“Campus Compact came along two decades later. Madison House and its volunteers invented their model on their own.” It’s a model that has worked well over the last half-century.
“Madison House has been what its creators and student volunteers hoped it would be – a catalyst for action by students to benefit surrounding communities and a constructive force in the lives of people living in communities around us,” Casteen wrote.
Madison House Alumna Discusses Food Justice
Shantell Bingham is Program Director of the Charlottesville Food Justice Network at City Schoolyard Garden, sits on the board of the Charlottesville Alliance for Black Male Achievement, chairs the Human Rights Commission and is a Dalai Lama Fellowship recipient. That list is just a few of her achievements. The UVa graduate and North Carolina native goes to work every day with one goal in mind: end food inequality and make sure everyone in the community has access to healthy and nutritious food.
“Right now that’s not the case,” Bingham said. “People of low income and of color have less access to healthy food options than others, for a number of reasons. That needs to change. I’m part of a collaborative movement that can make that happen.”
Eight Madison House Volunteers Receive Fulbright Scholarships:
Shree Baphna
“I think of it as a way for me to understand the power and value behind immersion,” Baphna said. “My future career in public health may involve attempting to understand the experience of other people so that I can figure out what is the best way to help them access the resources they need. For that, I need to have knowledge on how to best communicate with them. More so than that, I must learn how to understand the people I am working with so as to respect who they are and where they come from.”
Corinne Singh, an anthropology major, received the Community Service Award. Early in her undergraduate career, Singh learned that the Charlottesville Free Clinic lacked clinicians to draw blood samples. In response, Singh trained for and earned a phlebotomy certificate and began volunteering weekly at the clinic, serving a critical need. She also has inspired fellow students to become involved with Madison House’s Special Olympics program and with the emergency department at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital.
“The Charlottesville community is healthier and better off thanks to her service,” [trustee Mariana Brazao] stated.
She is a researcher working in labs in the biology, biomedical engineering and neurological surgery departments. Also a Madison House volunteer, she is a founder and head program director of the Creative Learning After School and Summer Program; a program director with Madison House Medical Services; a member of the Madison House HELP Line Outreach Team….
[During Alita’s] first semester, she ventured to Madison House, the independent, nonprofit volunteer center for UVA students.
“When I found Rise Together [through Madison House], I felt like their initiative, and just talking about my experiences and topics like bullying, was important to [the students],” she said. “I thought it was a really great initiative that I was glad to be a part of.”
Last spring, through Madison House, the independent, nonprofit volunteer center for UVA students, Duckett volunteered for a program called Creating Assets, Savings and Hope, or CASH, which helps people file their taxes.
“That was by far one of my favorite memories of UVA,” Duckett said. “It’s something I think a lot of us take for granted.
“There were clients we had who were refugees from Afghanistan and didn’t speak English. Being able to help someone and seeing people’s faces when they got a refund was amazing… For a lot of people, an extra $1,000 may go toward a new TV, but for our clients $1,000 was more of a lifeline.”
Harrington found many ways to contribute – to the University and the community beyond baseball. He got involved with an organization called Team IMPACT, which connects seriously ill children with collegiate athletic teams. He also volunteers at Madison House, and with several other student volunteer organizations.
“We have this great platform as student-athletes,” he said. “We have an opportunity and a responsibility to be good role models for kids and society generally. And it’s fun, being with a great group of guys doing something of benefit to others.”
Through Batten projects and her volunteer work with Madison House’s Cavs in the Classroom, and even in ballet, Sarah has learned a set of leadership skills that combine organization and attention to detail with a dancer’s confidence and grace.
“I knew I enjoyed school and I love learning,” Alexander said. Working with young pupils through Cavs in the Classroom – not to mention growing up in Louisiana, with a struggling public education system – has shown her firsthand the importance of education, she said. “I believe the solutions to our problems lie with making sure we have an educated citizenry.”
