A morning of practical help
At the Center at Belvedere, volunteers spent part of Wednesday landscaping, touching up paint and organizing storage spaces. Elsewhere around Charlottesville, other teams cleaned windows, painted doorways, cleared paths, maintained trails and prepared community spaces for the people who use them.
The work was straightforward by design. Each group arrived with a defined assignment, spent several hours completing what it could and left behind a space that was cleaner, more useful or better prepared. Together, those assignments formed the Laurence E. Richardson Day of Caring, an annual volunteer effort coordinated by the United Way of Greater Charlottesville.
More than 2,300 volunteers worked on more than 130 projects at over 100 Charlottesville-area organizations, according to WVIR. The participating sites included nonprofits, schools and early-learning centers. Cville Right Now reported that the event began with a kickoff breakfast at Sentara Martha Jefferson Hospital before volunteers spread across the region.
Turning local requests into shared work
The event depends on matching people who want to help with tasks organizations can realistically use in a day. Ravi Cooper, president and CEO of the United Way of Greater Charlottesville, told Cville Right Now that the organization first finds out what local nonprofits need, then coordinates those requests with volunteer groups.
That can mean a fresh coat of paint, a cleared path or an organized storage area. It can also mean helping an organization host an event. The projects reported this year ranged from cleaning and building to yardwork and trail maintenance, giving volunteers many ways to contribute without requiring specialized training.
Cville Right Now reported that as many as 2,300 volunteers were expected for about 120 projects across roughly 10 counties. The later account from WVIR described more than 2,300 people working on more than 130 projects at more than 100 organizations. The figures reflect different points in the day: an estimate before the event and a broader report during the event.
UVA teams spread across the area
More than 1,400 University of Virginia and UVA Health employees participated, according to UVA’s account. They worked on more than 100 teams and took part in 80 projects in and around Charlottesville.
At the Blue Ridge Area Food Bank, UVA Health employees scraped and painted parking blocks. At the Virginia Discovery Museum, university employees cleaned windows, washed a merry-go-round and painted a doorway. Other UVA teams cleared paths at the Botanical Garden of the Piedmont and at the Moormans River fishing area.
Some volunteers took on a different kind of assignment at WorkSource Enterprises’ Special Needs Prom. UVA employees helped serve lunch and support an afternoon that included line dancing. The setting shifted from maintenance to hospitality, but the basic role was the same: arrive ready to help with what the host organization had planned.
Devon Wade, a UVA Health volunteer quoted by WVIR, said serving alongside coworkers made the experience meaningful. For him, the day offered a tangible way for the university to contribute in the community where it is located.
A tradition with two reported anniversaries
UVA and Cville Right Now described the 2026 event as the 35th annual Day of Caring, tracing the tradition to a first gathering 35 years ago that drew 50 volunteers. WVIR’s headline, however, called it the 34th annual event. The discrepancy is present in the published coverage; the event’s university account uses the 35th-annual designation.
The broader history is clear even where the ordinal differs. The United Way has coordinated the event for decades, bringing volunteers together with organizations that have specific work waiting for them. Cville Right Now reported that, since 1992, the effort has involved nearly 50,000 volunteers and more than 5,000 projects benefiting local nonprofits, schools and faith-based organizations.
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