University of Virginia - Corks and Curls Yearbook (Charlottesville, VA)

Page 32 text:

26 In 1898, the first collegiate YMCA was chartered here at the University. Its facilities, located in Madison Hali, gradually became the focal point for communityactivity in the University area. Today, the community's urgent need for private involvement in local affairs has ripened into an array of Madison HalI-based community action programs. Staffed mainly by student volunteers and run on contributions from locai merchants, these programs help provide basic social necessities for area residents who are unable to provide them for themselves. The Office of Volunteer Community Service, Madison Hall, has two distinct branches dealing with the problems of community housing. Beginning in 1970, with the publication of the Landlord- Tenant Handbook, the Student Aid and Lawyer Referral Service has advised Charlottesville tenants in situations involving landlord responsibilities and tenant liabilities. SCRUB, Students Concerned with Rural and Urban Betterment, initiates projects to repair and brighten up area dwellings. Human needs, the lack of a concerned person, or of a one-to- one educationai relationship are also administered to by Madison Hall Volunteers. A current project of the volunteers is centered at Staunton's Western State Hospital, which houses emotionally- disturbed persons from the western areas of Wrginia. Overcrowding reduces to a minimum the amount of time a patient gets to spend with those who are treating him. Student volunteers in the Companionship Therapy Program pay regular visits to Western State Hospital, as well as Bloomfield School, the Children's Rehabilitation Center, and the Retarded Children's Association to provide personal relationships and outings for patients confined to hospital areas. The Total'ial Service provides tutors, usually in a one-to-one ratio, to elementary, iunior high, and high school students who are incapable of making regular classroom progress. Tutors also provide help for high school students in the Davis Ward and for University employees studying for high school equivalency examinations. Poverty, the loss of a parent, or a compound of the two, may leave a child with no feeling of direction. An older voice may be able to give direction to one just starting to realize himself. It is to this end, of providing this older voice, that the Big Brother-Sister Program was initiated in 1970. On regularly scheduled days, a Brother or Sister takes his little brother or sister away from his home environment and shows him points beyond. All of these programs are designed to increase the student's awareness of both the physical and emotional aspects of his surroundings. In this, the Office of Volunteer Community Services presents the student with an entirely new, non-academic opportunity to increase his knowledge of himself.

Page 31 text: