‘Being part of something bigger than you’ with Badger Volunteers

When Evan Blonien first told friends and family that he was enrolling at UW-Madison, they responded - adamantly - with this advice: Join Badger Volunteers.

Blonien, now in his second semester as a data science and political science major, took their advice and joined the long-running co-curricular program, which sends university students into the Madison-area community to help local nonprofits fulfill their missions.

"People said, first, do Badger Volunteers, and then do classes," he explains. "It has a reputation as a great program."

This semester, Blonien and three other UW-Madison freshmen - all in different majors and from various parts of the country - travel across town from campus each Wednesday afternoon to spend a couple of hours cleaning and tuning up bicycles at Bikes for Kids Wisconsin. The local nonprofit refurbishes donated used bikes and redistributes them to children, teens and adults across the state who otherwise could not afford them.

Blonien has found the work rewarding, and recognizes that it connects him to the broader community. "You know," he says, "that the bike you're working on is going to a kid who needs it."

Now in its 18th year, Badger Volunteers has facilitated more than 320,000 service hours and become a flagship program of the Morgridge Center for Public Service. On any given weekday of the semester, students can be found throughout Madison in other volunteer roles: stocking the shelves at food pantries, preparing for the growing season at a community garden, tutoring middle school students or helping to construct homes with Habitat for Humanity.

"This is the Wisconsin Idea incarnate," says Badger Volunteers program manager Lara Miller, referring to the firmly entrenched principle at UW-Madison that the university's work should benefit the world far beyond the boundaries of the classroom. "We are not only preparing students to impact Madison right now while they're on campus, but also developing them into citizens who are going to, wherever they are in life, be active members of their community."

Badger Volunteers began with fewer than a dozen student volunteers and four community partners, according to Miller. Now, this semester alone, 360 students are collaborating with more than 50 organizations - a remarkable level of engagement for a non-credit program and unpaid commitment on top of classes.

Sign-ups take place at the start of every semester, when both undergraduate and graduate students can browse volunteer opportunities and see which fits with their class schedule and interests.

"All of these opportunities are identified by our community partners," Miller says. "We're not telling them what they need. They're telling us."

The program is notable for the relationships it builds between community partners and volunteers: Students commit to working at least one to four hours a week for the same nonprofit all semester long. At Bikes for Kids Wisconsin, that means that a Badger Volunteer like Fiona Flynn can start the semester just cleaning used bikes and learning the basics - but within a few weeks know how to fix brakes, change tires and complete a bicycle tune-up on her own.

"They've done an amazing job training us to get us to a point where we all can do a lot of the repairs ourselves," says Flynn, a freshman biochemistry major from Massachusetts.

'Immeasurable friendship'

At the Central Wisconsin Center in Madison, which supports individuals with intellectual disabilities through both residential and short-term care, "We adore the Badger Volunteers program," says volunteer services coordinator Jeanne Pagel.

Having Badger Volunteers come back again and again to provide companionship for residents creates enduring bonds. "For example, one of the long-term volunteers from UW-Madison has been coming here for three years," Pagel says. "He has built a strong relationship with one of the residents. The student and the resident find happiness in their friendship together."

And just like that friendship, the benefits of the program are a two-way street. While "the students learn about disabilities, medical issues, how to work with non-verbal people, genetic diseases and compassion," she says, "the student volunteers bring to the residents living here community interactions, immeasurable friendship and lots of smiles. The residents who live here are medically fragile and not able to get into the community as much as we would like. Having the community come to them through the students is such a gift."

Caitlin Proffitt, a UW-Madison junior pursuing majors in psychology and social work, volunteered at Central Wisconsin Center for five semesters with Badger Volunteers. This semester, she's providing companionship for people with disabilities at Catholic Charities Adult Day Center.

Proffitt first heard about Badger Volunteers when she was researching UW-Madison in high school in Waukesha, Wisconsin. "It's one of the things I wrote about in my Madison application essay, actually," she says. "I've always volunteered, and I wanted a way to easily do that in college. Badger Volunteers was perfect for that."

What keeps her coming back to the program? "The relationships I've built with the people that are at our community partners, but also the people who are volunteering with me," and the friendships that have grown from that, she says. "It's a team model, so we always go with other students."

That team model applies to each site, where a designated student team leader takes attendance, helps organize transportation (students in the program who volunteer at a site more than a 35-minute bus ride from campus are provided a Lyft pass), and guides a monthly team reflection on the members' experience.

Completing that reflection is a key part of Badger Volunteers, Miller says. "A huge piece of the puzzle is not only to do the work, but also to reflect on what you're doing, how it's affecting the community and how it's affecting you."

Participating in Badger Volunteers can help build resumes and is a good way to explore careers, "but it really does come back to this core recognition of being part of something bigger than you," Miller says. "The feedback I get the most is that volunteering is an opportunity to get out of the campus bubble and recognize yourself as a vital part of the wider community."

Bringing generations together

At the Goodman Community Center on Madison's East Side, volunteer manager Abigail Sibilski, a UW-Madison graduate herself, welcomes about two dozen Badger Volunteers each semester to join the center's long-term volunteer force, some 200 people strong. The student volunteers blend in at many of the community center's key programs, such as its food pantry and Meals on Wheels delivery, youth activities and tutoring, and programming for adults over age 50.

The center's ongoing volunteers tend to be retirement age, so "Badger Volunteers add a nice intergenerational aspect," Sibilski says. They can also be a source of fresh ideas. One past Badger Volunteer, for example, traveled to the center each week to lead a senior walking group through the surrounding neighborhoods. The UW student came up with the idea of logging the group's miles.

"She made this super-cute chart that showed what landmarks in Wisconsin they would have walked to if it was one continuous walk," Sibilski says. "That got the seniors in the program really excited and they could come back and say, 'I walked a mile and a half today!' and see the progress they were making."

Sibilski, who first became connected with the Goodman Community Center through an internship while a UW-Madison student, says there have been other lasting benefits from the collaboration with Badger Volunteers. "I like to prompt them with this idea of, 'How can we relate this experience back to your future at the end of the semester?,'" she says. As an example, she points to a former Badger Volunteer, now graduated, who still comes in every week to help at the center.

At the St. Vincent de Paul Food Pantry across town, Ronan Piontek, a senior majoring in political science and Spanish, has worked as a Badger Volunteer for much of his UW career. His duties include loading grocery orders into cars and helping clients when needed.

"I genuinely enjoy volunteering, because I understand I'm coming into a lot of these communities where I have a lot of privileges," he says. "I don't have to worry about food insecurity. So I think it's my responsibility, both as a student and as a member of the Madison community, to get outside of campus and give back."

After graduation, Piontek will be volunteering full-time as a member of the Peace Corps - an extension of his lifelong desire to give back. His positive experience as a Badger Volunteer team leader reinforced his decision, he says.

"I would encourage everyone with even a hint of interest to join Badger Volunteers," he says. "I can guarantee that at every site, you will find people both on your team and with the community partner who are wonderful."