I n class, former Russian history Prof. Jim Hart always taught his students compassion. When he retired from the Uni versity and became director of volunteer programs at the Charlottesville Salvation Army, located off of Ridge Street, he was able to continue teaching the same values. Now, however, it is to another audience - underprivileged members in the Charlottesville community.
"I find I'm doing the same thing here," Hart observed, sitting behind his desk and clasping a copy of Babara Ehreneich's treatise on poverty, "Nickel and Dimed, Or (Not) Getting by in America."
Somewhat cloistered on Grounds, University students rarely encounter the homeless segment of Charlottesville's population.
But the homeless do exist - as faceless drifters in front of Corner pubs, or as nomadic wanderers, sleeping under downtown bridges. Some are alone. Some are parents and others are grandparents. Some even are children. And while most students depart Charlottesville after four years to pursue successful careers, the homeless remain.
Much like students, however, the homeless cleave to dreams and the prospects of a better, more independent lifestyle.
"None of us asked for this kind of life and all of us want out of it," one frequenter of the Salvation Army's soup kitchen explained.
Founded in the back alleys of London by Methodist minister William Booth in the 1860s, the Salvation Army quickly became an international movement to provide a sound future for the destitute.
Helping the poor realize this future inspired Hart to join the Charlottesville Salvation Army team. Hart, who also works part time at CVS Pharmacy on Barracks Road, left the University in the mid-nineties and took charge of coordinating volunteers at the Salvation Army two years ago. And though he speaks Russian, Spanish, Polish, Hungarian, French and German, he mentions that he recently learned a new language.
"The language here is the language of the streets - people on the streets don't trust anyone," he said. "By the time they get to us, they're usually really hardened."
While most people associate homelessness with adults, children also make up a startling percentage of the homeless population of Charlottesville. "The face of homelessness has changed," he said. "Twenty-five to 30 percent of the Charlottesville homeless population are kids, and that's insane."
Amanda Kucik, a fourth-year College student who volunteers at the Salvation Army with Canterbury Episcopal Fellowship, remembers feeling utterly disheartened when she noticed so many kids.
"It strikes me how their lives differ so much from my childhood," Kucik said.
A mega kitchen
At the frontlines of the Salvation Army's mission in Charlottesville stands the soup kitchen.
There, volunteers prepare over 60,000 hot meals annually. That's three hot meals a day, 365 days of the year for hundreds of needy individuals. For many who depend daily on the soup kitchen for three square meals, the Salvation Army forms the bridge between stability and starvation, between life and death.
"This isn't quite the way I intended to spend my forties," one man, sitting at a large dining table, recollected over a plate of homemade meatloaf and mashed potatoes. "But I feel like at least people really want me to succeed here - like they care about what I'm doing with my life."
In the background, parishoners from St. Paul's Memorial Church prepare dinner, scurrying about the kitchen stacking pots and pans and refilling trays in the serving line. Over the clatter, volunteer servers politely holler, "Gravy, Ma'am? Gravy Sir? How about a little salad on the side?"
And on the other side of the soup kitchen's cinder-block walls, more branches of the Salvation Army's mission help the homeless root themselves in a new life.
The Salvation Army also sponsors programs that provide medical, spiritual and substance-abuse support, all of which are geared toward rebuilding lives scarred by poverty.
For parents who are seeking employment, the Salvation Army offers childcare during the day. Free daycare provides another incentive for them to re-establish themselves in the working world.
"The first thing we want them to do is get a job," Hart said. "Then, they can learn to manage their life by saving money and eventually getting their own place. We encourage them to walk before they run, though. We take them from homelessness to having their own homes."
To facilitate this move to independence, the Salvation Army sponsors the Transitional Housing Unit, where the homeless can reside until they find their own accommodations.
"When they come here, they've hit more than just a bump in the road," Hart pointed out.
The Transitional Housing Unit, which assists nearly 40 people annually, provides a safe, nurturing environment much like the ones Hart hopes the temporary occupants will create when they leave.
And in the meantime, many of the occupants remain extremely grateful.
"They've told me I can stay here until I get things in order," one resident of the Transitional Housing Unit recounted. "I just thank God everyday for letting me find this place. For the first time in a long time, I feel like I might just make it - that I will make it."
Second time around
Just around the corner on Cherry Avenue, the Salvation Army also sponsors a thrift store that is popular among University students in search of inexpensive furniture and second-hand clothes.
"In August, we get U.Va. kids over here buying couches for their apartments and by the end of the year, we usually see the same couches back," Hart said.
Sales from the thrift store form over 20 percent of the annual $2.5 million budget. The Salvation Army, like many charities, depends on a wide variety of sources for financial support.
And though funding from President George W. Bush's Faith Based Initiative has not yet trickled down to grassroots America, Hart doesn't despair. He knows he can count on thousands of volunteers - including those from handfuls of on-Grounds religious and service-oriented organizations - to keep coming back.
Still, Hart encourages even more University students to volunteer at the Salvation Army.
"The Salvation Army matches volunteers with jobs where they will use their skills most efficiently. But their number one skill is just being a good role model," he insisted.
Rev. Jonathan Voorhees, Episcopal priest and chaplain of Canterbury Fellowship, cooks with a number of college students in the soup kitchen on the first Thursday of each month.
"It's so easy," Voorhees said. "We're out of there by 6:30 p.m. and I always feel so much better when I leave.
"And besides," he boasted, jokingly, "Our meatloaf rocks!"
"Community service there is so good," Kucik added. "It forces us out of our privileged, young, academic village and we are confronted with a different existence."
And Hart - Prof. Hart, that is - remains optimistic about anyone who walks through the doors of the Salvation Army.
"Once they leave here, life is going to happen to them," he said.
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