Who says you can’t go home again? After seven years with Habitat for Humanity (www.avenue.org/habitat) and another three with the AIDS/HIV Services Group, Kelly Eplee is returning to Madison House (www.scs.student.virginia.edu/~madison) where he worked as the assistant director from 1992 to 1996. He will fill the position of executive director and says he is “excited to go back and be part of the leadership.” Founded in 1970, Madison House exists to train UVA students to volunteer in the community. “Many thousands of lives are touched by the students who volunteer,” says Eplee. It was the opportunity to work hands-on with students who are “the best and brightest of UVA,” he says, that lured him back to Madison. “It takes an exceptional student to do the course work and volunteer once a week for three hours,” Eplee says.
Local nonprofit notable Kelly Eplee wants to help change the world, one UVA student at a time.
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Eplee is exceptional in his own right. Just two of his accomplishments at Habitat have been the creation of the Habitat Store (which sells new and salvaged building materials to the public at discounted prices) and the raising of funds to purchase trailer parks to redevelop as higher density mixed-income neighborhoods. “My career has always been in community-based organizations that are making huge differences in the life of the area,” Eplee says. And that entire career has been based in Charlottesville, a city he calls a “great hub of energy to do outreach.” The University community, in particular, “brings amazing brainpower and energy into a rural Southern state,” he says.
Still, his focus remains on the students who, he says, have great enthusiasm and spirit and are willing to learn. Eventually, he sees the students who come through Madison House becoming tomorrow’s leaders. “They will make a huge difference in the world when they leave here.”