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.
Student-athletes play it forward through Madison House's ACE Program
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.
Madison House celebrates 50 years of serving Charlottesville, empowering students
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.”