Volunteer organization encourages students to make a difference

There is often a lot more to volunteering than showing up and giving it your all. In a community like the University of Wisconsin–Madison, it’s easy to write off volunteering as too far away or too intimidating because it’s often so different than campus life.

UW-Madison Morgridge Center civic engagement coordinator Anne Whisner wanted to address these issues and make it easier for students to give back to the community without the complications.

“To figure out transportation, to go on their own, to kind of just navigate Madison and contact somebody, that was a big step for a lot of our students,” she says, adding that many didn’t take it.

So last fall, Whisner launched Badger Volunteers at the Morgridge Center. Badger Volunteers offers students a chance to volunteer once a week in a group at the same nonprofit organization during the semester. Students can choose from a growing number of affiliated organizations on a first-come, first-served basis.

“We started last fall really to meet the need on campus of students being able to volunteer with other students in kind of a structured way with some support, and also to meet community needs,” Whisner says.

Students form teams of five to 20 students, based on the needs of each individual site. Badger Volunteers offered four sites with spots available to 40 students in fall 2008. Eight more sites came on board in the spring semester, opening spots for 122 students.

All spots were filled within the first week of registration both semesters.

This fall, Badger Volunteers will boast more than 50 sites with spaces for between 500 and 2,500 student volunteers.

In addition to taking care of the logistics for student volunteers, Badger Volunteers endeavors to educate students about the social issues they encounter at their sites “to give them a more global picture of how their service fits into the community,” Whisner says.

All Badger Volunteers attend orientation at the beginning of the semester to meet their other team members and learn about relevant social issues.

“We’ve been intentional about making it a deeper, more meaningful relationship of having that orientation about the issues they’re addressing, how they can kind of move from talk to action,” Whisner says, adding that she also helps students become aware of the possibilities for turning what they’ve experienced volunteering into a career or major.

The issues for both the fall and spring semesters included hunger, homelessness, elderly, youth and education. This fall, environment, poverty and health will be added.

Badger Volunteer leaders coordinate orientation and three reflection sessions a semester.

Each site has one Badger Volunteer leader to serve as liaison to the nonprofit as well as organizer of that site’s team. The leaders volunteer weekly alongside their team members.

The Badger Volunteer leaders track hours and attendance and organize transportation to and from the sites for their team.

Karli Hurlebaus, a UW–Madison senior studying human development, family studies and child development, got involved as a Badger Volunteer leader last fall as soon as she saw the program advertised in the Morgridge Center newsletter.

“There are a lot of volunteer experiences around here, but the majority of them are going out solo, by yourself, so it just appealed to me right away,” she says.

Hurlebaus works at the Bayview Foundation’s after-school program, tutoring racially diverse kids from low- to middle-income families largely residing in the Triangle community.

“I’ve just always loved working with kids,” Hurlebaus says. “I kind of don’t do anything that isn’t totally driven by kids.”

Hurlebaus, who led between eight and 10 Badger Volunteers on a weekly basis, was grateful for the opportunity to reflect on her experiences with the team members she shared them with.

When volunteering individually, “you’d tell somebody what happened and they wouldn’t really know because they didn’t know your kids, they didn’t know the situation,” she says. “It’s nice to have people that really do get it.”

Hurlebaus soon found that working with college students was much different than working with children.

“It was definitely a change because you get used to working with little kids who are totally dependent on you,” she says, “but when you’re working with younger adults, they have their own agenda. They have other things to do, they have different reasons they came, different things they’re looking for in the volunteer experience.”

She says the experience enhanced her patience and flexibility, as she had to learn to balance the needs of the kids with those of the organization and those of her team members.

Apparently, she did a good job.

“With them coming in once a week to make a difference, some of the kids did very good at school,” says Bayview program coordinator Paul Ly, adding that parents reported positive changes in report cards.

Ly says many of the Badger Volunteers continued to show up at Bayview even after their official term was over.

“It was very positive,” he says. “They’re all enthusiastic.”

While the Bayview after-school program is open to kids from preschool to high school, Hurlebaus says most of the Badger Volunteers worked with elementary school kids to help them learn to read. This was particularly challenging because for a lot of the children, English wasn’t their first language and often wasn’t even spoken at home.

“It really did open my eyes to how much of a daily struggle it is (for them),” Hurlebaus says of working with non-native speakers. She gives the example of a little boy struggling with a math problem.

“He didn’t know what he was doing because he didn’t know what the problem was asking him, not because he didn’t know how to do it,” she says. “You have to be aware of what is going on in every aspect of this kid’s life, not just what you see.”

Jessica Boebel, a UW–Madison junior and Badger Volunteer leader at the River Food Pantry, says that she and her volunteers also grew from the experience.

“A lot of students didn’t expect this from Madison,” she says. “Campus is totally different than other parts of Madison and it was just nice for them to realize that a lot of people do need help.”

Boebel, a biology major, and her team helped clients pick out and weigh food.

“I think we just all grew to appreciate what we have, and that we can make a difference and help other people’s lives,” she says.

Director Jenny Czerkas says the River continuously benefits from the help of the Badger Volunteers.

“I think the reason they work out so well for us is that the same group comes every week and they know exactly what to do,” she says. “They’re consistent, they’re reliable, they show up on time.”

New and returning nonprofits for the fall semester include the Glendale Safe Haven after-school program, Family Resource Center, Friends of the Madison Public Library, Schools of Hope, Wheelchair Recycling Program and South Madison Coalition of the Elderly (SMCE).

“We had a great experience with the Badger Volunteers,” says SMCE program supervisor Candice Duffek. “They worked great together in helping us with food prep, serving meals and clean up. But they also spent their time socializing with the older adults, who always looked forward to them coming every week.”

Both Hurlebaus and Boebel will continue with Badger Volunteers for the remainder of their college careers and will seek other volunteer opportunities after that.

“I don’t think I could stop now,” Hurlebaus says. “It’s worth doing all the time.”