University of Virginia Library

Students Offer Low Cost Community Aid

Students at the University are taking
time out from their studies to do a little
extra for the citizens of Charlottesville,
Albemarle County, and Central Virginia.

Community service organizations,
fraternities, student societies and
individuals are all involved in services
ranging from helping set up a hardware
store to offering friendship to a child.

Problem-Solution

As one student volunteer puts it, "We
see a problem, try to come up with a
solution and then get as many people as
we can to help."

Students in the Graduate School of Business
Administration are finding a way to help
through Opportunity Consultants, Inc.,
founded last year by a student to provide
low-cost professional consultation to small
businessmen primarily from lower
socio-economic groups.

For a $10 fee, student teams offer advice in
market research, inventory control, financing,
personnel and bookkeeping.

Professional Advice

"We've worked with everything from a
6,000-item hardware store to a six-item
restaurant," said Jackson Young, a second-year
business student. "It's a rewarding thing to be
able to help these people who otherwise would
not be able to afford professional advice."

A group of 12 law students, members of the
Legal Assistance Society at the School of Law,
travels throughout a 10-county area in Central
Virginia representing persons at hearings
determining eligibility for welfare.

More than 100 members of the Legal
Assistance Society work with the local Legal
Aid Society interviewing potential clients,
assisting attorneys in handling cases, preparing
pleas and doing correspondence.

The School of Medicine's Mulholland
Society has established a program in which
medical students give talks on drugs, sex
education, medical careers or the dangers of
smoking to schools, ivi organizations and
church groups. The greatest call has been for
drug lectures.

"We give factual information, not opinion,"
said William Talman, fourth-year medical
student. "Students seem to appreciate that we
don't preach."

In response to this growing curiosity about
drugs, a "Drug Hot Line" was set up in the
School of Medicine with medical and legal
information about drugs available 24 hours a
day from the medical students on call.