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.”
On March 11, 2020, all Madison House in-person volunteering was suspended in an effort to slow the emergence of COVID-19. Shortly after, a Spring Action Team headed by Madison House student volunteers Simmy Bhatia, Caroline Hallowell, and Mikaela Rirchardson worked in coordination with Dr. Rose Cole, the Madison House Director of Community Engagement, to begin developing a virtual volunteering initiative called "Hoos Helping."
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.
