Students participate in summer session for Badger Volunteers

For the second year in a row, the Morgridge Center for Public Service has offered a summer session of its Badger Volunteers Program.

During the regular academic year, nearly 500 UW–Madison students participate in Badger Volunteers each semester. The summer session operates on a much smaller scale with just 27 registered volunteers. It is 10 weeks long, from mid-June to mid-August.

Kala Grove, the Badger Volunteers program coordinator, says many students work or take classes over the summer. Some of them are new to the program and heard about it from friends who have participated in the past.

“They have chosen to volunteer in the summer session because they have more free time and have wanted to get involved,” says Grove, adding that there are several returning students.

Five teams of students volunteer at one of four nonprofits in Madison that are accessible by bus, bike or foot.

• Wheels for Winners is a 100 percent volunteer organization that depends on contributions of donated bikes for the community. The student volunteers learn how to work on and fix up old bikes that will be given to children who “earn” a bike by completing community service and reading books.

“I really wanted to give back to my community, and this opportunity sounded really interesting,” says student Krista Duffy, who volunteers at Wheels for Winners. “I’ve never worked with bicycles before, and I thought this would be a great chance to try something new. I love working with my hands, so this sounded like the perfect fit for me. So far, the experience has been fantastic!”

Duffy says Badger Volunteers has allowed her to meet some awesome people and it has given her the opportunity to make a difference in the lives of others.

• At the Neighborhood House Youth Summer Camp the Badger Volunteers work with kids 6 to 11 years old, taking them on field trips to downtown Madison destinations, including the Kohl Center, Allen Centennial Gardens and Silver Buckle Press. Each week of camps has a different theme, such as science, nutrition, Olympics and music.

• At the Madison School Community Recreation Summer Camp at Emerson School, the Badger Volunteers serve as mentors for elementary school students. They read one-on-one with a student tutee, assist with computer club and help coordinate outdoor science clubs.

• The Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery Town Center hosts two groups of Badger Volunteers, who facilitate science activities for K-12 students on field trips at the Town Center, helping them find fossils in the institutes’ floor, talking to them about water conservation and showing them different tools that science professionals use.

Grove says students walk, ride bikes or take the bus over the summer months.

During the fall and spring, students are transported via cabs to sites off the bus line or more than 80 minutes away round trip by bus. This fall that service may be cut back for about 300 volunteers due to the rapid growth of the volunteer programs and high need for transportation to outlying sites, according to Grove.

The center is trying to raise funds to continue the transportation service.

“We will continue to search for donors to fund transportation for the popular service learning and volunteer programs,” says Nancy Mathews, Morgridge Center director. “We need to make it possible for civic-minded university students to get to inconvenient locations in a safe and time-effective manner and to support our community’s need for student volunteers.”