This holiday season, 150 more families will have gifts and food to celebrate thanks to Madison House’s Holiday Sharing Program. This Dec. 3 — the organization’s distribution day — a semester's-worth of work will culminate when these 150 families will pick up the myriad gifts that will have been sponsored and packaged for them by student volunteers.
Emily Brown, fourth-year College student and head program director of Holiday Sharing, has seen the program expand and develop over the past years.
“I kind of feel like [Holiday Sharing has] been an essential part of what my experience at U.Va. has been,” Brown said. “I just really fell in love with the program when I was first a volunteer. Seeing the impact we had on families’ lives was amazing to me, and it kind of became something that I really wanted to help develop.”
This year’s goal to sponsor 150 families was the organization’s most ambitious initiative yet. Because the city of Charlottesville has a poverty rate over double that of the state as a whole, Brown stressed the organization’s importance to the community.
“The need in Charlottesville for this type of program is huge, and that’s where the majority of our families live is in the city of Charlottesville,” Brown said.
Morgan Gronbeck, fourth-year Commerce student and program director for Holiday Sharing, has found much of what the group does rooted in the importance to the children.
“I don’t think that material things are really important, but I just can’t imagine a preschool kid coming back to school after the holidays and everyone talking about all the gifts they got for Christmas or Hanukkah and them not having anything,” Gronbeck said. “I think that’s it’s really important that kids have that special time over the holidays, so I really wanted to make sure that we can help do that.”
Lee Williams, third-year Curry student and program director for Holiday Sharing, started volunteering for the organization in his first year because of the recognizable benefits it gives to community members.
“It seemed to me that Holiday Sharing was the most direct service to people who are disadvantaged in the Charlottesville area,” Williams said. “I really liked the way the program went and I saw how our efforts early on in the semester kind of manifested in distribution week and distribution day.”
Although the volunteers don’t spend time with the families during every volunteering shift, they are able to connect with them at the beginning of the semester, when families sign up to participate in the program.
“As we’re doing that we learn about their kids and all and a lot of them open up about their story,” Gronbeck said. “You do get to see who these people are and you know their stories and a lot of families with all kinds of situations and you can relate to them.”
As community parents sign up, University volunteers are able to connect with the people who their work will benefit for the rest of the semester.
“It’s a really humbling experience to see that parents are doing this not really for themselves but for the kids,” Williams said.
Throughout the semester, many of the volunteering shifts are spent planning for upcoming fundraising events.
“It’s a very different structured program than most other Madison House programs because what we do every week changes,” Gronbeck said.
Last week, the group went shopping for many of the gifts that they will give out on distribution day.
“Some of our sponsors give monetary donations, and then we get to shop for the families ourselves so we’re taking our volunteers to go shopping,” Gronbeck said. “[The volunteers will] get to pick out the gifts, which is really fun. It makes our volunteers feel much more engaged.”
When distribution day comes around, Holiday Sharing organizes a cookie decorating table and a volunteer dresses as Santa Claus for the many kids that come along with their families.
“I think that I’ve really gained an appreciation for how lucky I am and how many opportunities I’ve had, and I feel like I’ve really gained a sense of responsibility and wanting to make a difference in other people’s lives using the opportunities I’ve been afforded,” Brown said.
While the organization’s work is nearly finished, they are still fundraising and looking for more sponsors for remaining families.
“I think [I have gained] a much greater understanding of the community,” Gronbeck said. “I think that a lot of people at U.Va. kind of live in a bubble and U.Va.’s demographics are not representative of the greater community… [Being a part of Holiday Sharing] has made me a better community member.”
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