History of Day of Caring

The first United Way Day of Caring was held in 1992 with just 50 volunteers. The event has grown steadily over the years, with 1,800 people from across our region coming together in 2024 to donate service to the City of Charlottesville and Counties of Albemarle, Fluvanna, Greene, Louisa, and Nelson. In 1999, the event was renamed the Laurence E. Richardson Day of Caring to honor Larry Richardson, one of our long-time volunteers, previous president of the Charlottesville Broadcasting Company, and overall great human who loved to give back to our community. His spirit of volunteerism and giving back is what Day of Caring is all about.

Volunteer at Day of Caring

Groups from local businesses, university departments, organizations, or more can pre-register for Day of Caring in the spring/summer before the event. If your organization or group would like to volunteer as a team, please reach out to Markiana Smith at msmith@unitedwaycville.org or (434) 972-1702.

Become a Volunteer Site

If you work or volunteer for a nonprofit, public school, local government office, faith-based organization, or other tax-exempt organization and have a task or project that could use volunteers, please reach out to Markiana Smith at msmith@unitedwaycville.org or (434) 972-1702. We usually begin planning project sites each summer.

Frequently Asked Questions

Day of Caring is a huge event–the largest and most impactful volunteer event in our region to be exact! There are lots of details to remember, so take a look at some frequently asked questions below:

• FAQs for Volunteers and Volunteer Teams
• FAQs for Project Hosts

As always, if you have questions about anything we haven’t covered yet, don’t hesitate to reach out!

Interested in Sponsoring?

The impact of Day of Caring would not be possible without our event sponsors. If you are interested in partnering with us to be a part of this amazing community-centric initiative, please reach out to Ben Wilkes at bwilkes@unitedwaycville.org or (804) 615-6040.

Thank You Volunteers!

You make this level of impact a reality! Thank you to all past, present, and future volunteers who are a key part of Day of Caring’s legacy.