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.”
Subhash’s tennis game is founded upon control and organization, as those around her tell it. When asked about her on-court presence, Coach Sara O’Leary describes her style of play as all-court and focused.
When she isn’t beating up on ACC competition, studying or trying new pastries, Subhash does her best to give back to the community, where she helps tutor younger students in math and reading comprehension through Madison House.
Madison House, the independent volunteer center for students at the University, has continued to organize service work throughout the pandemic, confronting challenges of volunteer work in a virtual world and adapting programming to respond to the Charlottesville community’s most pressing needs.
The COVID-19 pandemic has provided program directors at Madison House with an opportunity to think about the accessibility of programs and to reevaluate student and community participation, according to Johnson. New programs have included closer connections to the University Equity Center in order to promote this accessibility.
ASB has been a prominent CIO at the University since 1992 when it began as a part of Madison House before eventually branching off. ASB provides service-based travel opportunities to students on Grounds at locations across the United States, and in past years, has organized between 15 and 30 national trips. Programs work with organizations like the National Park Service and Habitat for Humanity International over the span of a normal, seven-day spring break.
CASH is a tax program run by Madison House, the independent volunteer center for UVA students. The program is run in partnership with the local United Way. It is designed to help low-income workers file their taxes and maximize their refunds. “We receive tax documents from local Charlottesville community members making under $57,000 a year,” Hedgecock said. “Then we will prepare the tax forms for them, run them through their refund, make sure it’s checked several times to ensure accuracy and really explain why they are getting a refund or not.”
In 2018, Student Council and the Inter-Sorority Council piloted a menstrual hygiene program, which involved placing free menstrual hygiene products in five Newcomb Hall bathrooms for a two week period. Additional funding was provided for the initiative in 2019, with locations of free menstrual hygiene products expanding to bathrooms in Newcomb Hall, Madison House and various libraries on Grounds.
Members of Period at U.Va. work to continue educating University students and community members about menstruation while addressing the menstrual needs of students on Grounds.
Madison House continues to stand in affirming the basic human right to live without fear of violence. Since the pandemic began, there has been a dramatic increase in violence against Asian, Pacific Islander, and Desi Americans (APIDAs). We condemn these acts of racism against the APIDA community and grieve the murder of 8 people, including 6 Asian women to a hate crime in Atlanta. We stand in support of the APIDA community and acknowledge the pain, anguish, and anger at this injustice. It is a justified anger that speaks to the intolerance, discrimination, and an often overlooked history of anti-Asian oppression.
Since arriving on Grounds, the second-year student has logged serious hours as a Madison House volunteer, leading a local effort to teach citizens how to create résumés and apply for jobs. She’s also a member of the Second Year Council, as well as an intern with the Charlottesville-based Ron Brown Scholar Program, an organization that provides academic resources to underserved black youth.
Most Madison House volunteering programs have been unable to operate as normal for nearly a year now. In-person volunteering continues to be suspended, however, three of the almost 40 Madison House Medical Services programs — Rounding with Heart, Pediatric Genetic Counseling and Spanish Interpretation — have found creative ways to overcome these limitations and continue to execute the Madison House mission of serving the needs of the Charlottesville community through virtual means.
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.
Dana Palmer, a nurse in UVA Health’s cardiac care unit, certainly had her hands full. After COVID-19 struck, Palmer’s unit was left shorthanded when University of Virginia student volunteers from Madison House – the independent, nonprofit volunteer center for UVA students – were no longer able to coordinate rounding, a task they had helped conduct since 2015 through the cardiac care unit’s Rounding With Heart program.
Eli Ratzlaff is a recent graduate from UVA (CLAS '20) who majored in Political Philosophy, Policy, and Law with a minor in History. While at UVA, Eli volunteered with the International Rescue Committee (IRC) as an Immigration Intern. He also volunteered at the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank as a food box packer for seniors and had a brief tenure as a tutor for elementary school children through Madison House.
“We’re looking at helping people maximize their income because they can do a lot with that tax return or the money they save,” said Ravi Respeto, president and CEO of the local United Way. “One of our goals is to promote financial stability. The money they can get back, the money they can save by not paying to have their taxes done, is money they can spend on rent or food or pay bills or fix a car.”
Called Cville Tax Aid, the program partners with IRS-trained University of Virginia student volunteers through the Madison House Creating Assets, Savings and Hope program, otherwise known as CASH.
In recent years, UVA has expanded programs and pathways for incorporating community service into student experience. Some opportunities have grown out of Madison House, the independent student volunteer center – supporting Stephenson’s and other writing courses, for example. The provost’s office and Center for Teaching Excellence are also highly involved.
My grandfather served in the Navy and then as a police officer for many years, and from an early age, he instilled in me a sense of service and benevolence that I have always carried with me. He inspired me to join the University Judiciary Committee in my first semester at UVA, and I ended up enjoying the job so much that I wanted to find new ways to give back to the University Community. I joined a Madison House program and became a peer advisor, and everything else just spiraled from that.
Julia Larsen (CLAS '21) and Heath Yancey (CLAS '22) are Peer Health Educators who organized the annual Fourth Year 5K. Despite being virtual this year, this UVA tradition raised around $3,000 for the Charlottesville Area Community Foundation and benefited community members that were profoundly impacted by the pandemic. Julia is a Spanish and Biology major and a member of APO, a medical scribe with the UVA Emergency Department, and a pen pal to assisted living residents. Heath is a Neuroscience major and a volunteer on the UVA Hospital Acute Pediatrics floor.
Photographs were selected as representative of the various public service work in which University students engage throughout the year—from Alternative Spring Break trips to volunteering with Madison House programs to community-based research projects abroad—we are excited to showcase and celebrate the partnerships between the University, the local community, and beyond.
In 2011, she founded the UVa Arts Mentors Program utilizing undergraduates to provide experiences in drama, music and other arts for local elementary school students they otherwise may not get.
“She was starting the [Arts Mentors] program because she knew not all students in Charlottesville were able to have the opportunities her kids were having and she wanted to level the playing field a bit,” Caldwell recalled. “What started 10 years ago as a small fly-by-the-seat-of-your-pants program is now a well-established Madison House volunteer opportunity.”
During the fall semester, University of Virginia students and their counterparts at Ghent University in Belgium took part in a virtual, non-credit course, “Resilience in the Face of Complexity, Uncertainty, and Injustice.”
Madison House, the independent, nonprofit volunteer center for UVA students, partnered with the U.S. Department of State and the Presidential Precinct to host the course, which entailed Zoom meetings and accompanying coursework. The course was part of the International Visitor Leadership Program, an 80-year-old initiative to promote cross-cultural relationships and further U.S. foreign policy goals.
She’s also been participating in Madison House’s Creating Assets, Savings & Hope, or CASH, program as a volunteer income tax assistant since her first year, which she said she enjoys for the opportunity to be directly involved with the greater Charlottesville community.
“CASH helps me recognize the magnitude and privilege of being a student, while recognizing the importance of remembering my background. No matter what professional role I have when I’m older, I will continue to represent underrepresented groups and advocate for them,” she said.
