Badger Volunteers honored for community service

Badger Volunteers from the UW–Madison’s Morgridge Center for Public Service, 120 in all, were honored last month with a Distinguished Service Award by United Way of Dane County.

In 2011-12 the Badger Volunteers contributed more than 15,200 hours of service to the Madison area.

The Badger Volunteers program was one of 10 organizations and individuals that received recognition for their dedication and outstanding efforts to improve the local community. It was nominated in the category of Improving Academic Achievement.

The volunteers have touched the lives of more than 1,800 Madison residents each year since the program began in 2008-09. They tutor at local schools, coordinate after-school science clubs, and work with health organizations, food pantries, clinics and services for the elderly.

The Badger Volunteers tutoring through Schools of Hope understand the value of reading at a young age. For the past three years, they have recruited and deployed hundreds of their peers to 13 local middle and high schools through United Way’s Schools of Hope initiative.

These 120 volunteers provide their students with confidence and inspiration necessary for them to realize that college is definitely within reach.

“Badger Volunteers are an essential part of the Schools of Hope Program,” says Andrew Schilcher of the Urban League of Madison, who nominated the group.

“Badger Volunteers make a huge impact on the students and communities that they serve,” adds Schilcher. “Through their one-on-one work with students in Madison area schools, they not only contribute to the improvement of student achievement, but they encourage students to thrive as individuals within their community.”

Coordinated through the Urban League of Greater Madison — a United Way Schools of Hope Partner — tutors are increasing student engagement and performance every year. The tutors being mobilized by these 120 volunteers provide their students with the confidence and inspiration necessary for them to realize that college is definitely within their reach.

Each year an estimated 1,200 Badger Volunteers, service learning students and tutors with the Schools of Hope program use the Volunteer Transportation Program (VTP). The students value the transportation program because it allows them to spend more time with the children and adults they serve.

The transportation program allows the Badger Volunteers to reach service sites off the bus lines or more than 80 minutes roundtrip by bus from campus.

Morgridge Center director Nancy Mathews says that the center needs donors and grants in order to continue the transportation program. It is estimated that by 2013-14 the center will need $120,000 annually to finance the increasing volunteer transportation needs for all users.