AHIP names Madison House 2008 ‘Housing Hero’
Photo by Bobby Grasberger, Cavalier Daily Photo Staff
Madison House, pictured above, recently was recognized for its decades-long relationship with the Albemarle Housing Improvement Program. The student volunteer center supplies AHIP with dozens of volunteers each year.
The Albemarle Housing Improvement Program honored Madison House, the University’s student volunteer center, with the 2008 Housing Hero Award last Thursday.
The award is given annually “to highlight families or organizations or individuals within the community that embody the spirit of AHIP’s vision or have someway promoted what it means to be a good neighbor in our community,” said Jennifer Jacobs, director of resource development at AHIP.
Jacobs noted that Madison House was recognized for its decades-long relationship with AHIP, the latter of which grew out of a University volunteer group formed in response to the destruction caused in 1969 by Hurricane Camille.
Madison House Executive Director Kelly Eplee described the two organizations as being “umbilically connected,” adding that, “literally AHIP began in the shed that stands in the Madison House parking lot to this day.”
While Madison House no longer houses AHIP, it still supplies the non-profit with volunteers every year, Eplee said.
Jacobs said of the nearly 200 volunteers that worked with AHIP this past year, 81 were University students coordinated through Madison House. Students spent about three hours per week volunteering for AHIP, working on various building projects within the community including improving substandard housing, doing emergency repairs and demolition work, constructing handicap accessible ramps and adding roofing and siding to homes, she said. Volunteers also offered to supply maintenance work and tutor students at the Park’s Edge Apartment complex, which offers 96 units of affordable rental housing.
Jacobs recognized the importance of such volunteers, who allow AHIP to save money that would have otherwise been spent on labor and use it toward essential purchases such as building materials. Eplee, meanwhile, also said the volunteers themselves also benefit from participation with AHIP, noting that students “get to meet members the community that they would not have otherwise met.”
Madison House is the second recipient of the Housing Hero Award. Last year, AHIP presented the award to a family that gave a life estate to a family that had been evicted from its home.
