The Jefferson Trust

Our Grant Proposal form is now available for the 2019-20 annual funding cycle. Submission deadline is October 1, 2019. Learn more and apply here!

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This spring the Jefferson Trust launched a new funding opportunity – Flash Funds. Awarded on a monthly basis as long as funds last, Flash Funds seek to meet more immediate needs of the University community.

Eight awards totaling just over $50,000 were funded in March and April. These flash grants include:

WICS Hack for the Future: $1,400
Women in Computing Sciences (WiCS) supports, celebrates, and encourages the growing community of women in computing. Every year, WICS hosts a hackathon at UVA to inspire coders (specifically targeting minorities in the CS industry) to create innovate projects and build up their confidence in their abilities through various workshops. Funding will expand this hackathon in its second year.

Coding for Kids: $2,400
Providing a dynamic and personal supplement to the technology and computer science curricula at Charlottesville City Schools, empowering children to get excited about topics to which they may not have had much previous exposure. Coding for Kids will help combat the pipeline problem in the STEM fields through face-to-face, interactive small-group lessons led by McIntire students and faculty.

Solar Education Community Outreach Program: $2,850
The program is designed to teach middle school students about the logistics and benefits around solar technology. This is done with the goal of providing younger students in the Charlottesville community exposure to renewable energy and a greater understanding of the different types of options our society has available with respect to its energy sources.

Community Engagement Training Video: $7,940
The Office of the Vice Provost for Academic Outreach will create a set of short training videos for students seeking community service opportunities. These videos would supplement and expand the training currently available through community engaged courses, Madison House and Student Affairs.

Echols Scholars Symposium: $10,000
To offer Echols Scholars in their final year as undergraduates the opportunity to present what they have learned from their coursework in individual fields of study and at the intersection of various disciplines.

Lightbulb: $10,000
Lightbulb is a unique web platform for college campuses that connects people with ideas to people who have the skill to implement them, at their specific universities, helping overcome the most fundamental problem that aspiring entrepreneurs face. Users can approach the platform from two perspectives – either they have an idea and are looking for the right talent to execute it, or they do not have an idea but have skills that they would like to use working on other ideas.

Ripple Fellowship: $10,000
To apply UVa’s culture of student self-governance and student-driven learning to cultivate systems of entrepreneurship. The fellowship will provide a unique summer intensive dedicated to applying evidence-based frameworks for venture development and subsequently train students from diverse backgrounds as entrepreneurial mentors for their peers. The Ripple Fellowship aims to transform UVA’s entrepreneurial culture by lending institutional frameworks to the startup environment and pioneer a national model for students seeking to change the world.

Virginia Quarterly Review Podcast Initiative: $8,000                                                   To launch a radio storytelling series that brings the magazine’s artful style and civic relevance to a globally syndicated podcast modeled after the New Yorker Radio Hour and The Daily from The New York Times. A pilot episode will take listeners on a deep dive into a VQR story as it unfolds.

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Hanson Slaughter (COM ’94) joined the Jefferson Trust (the “Trust”) in the 2017-2018 academic year. The impetus for Hanson joining the Trust dates back to his undergraduate years when he approached Alumni Hall for a loan for one of his extracurricular activities. After a meeting with several people regarding the nature and use of the loan, Alumni Hall funded the request, which Hanson ensured was paid back prior to graduation.

As the University continues to grow, Hanson feels strongly about having an accessible resource where those affiliated with UVA may seek reasonable funding for projects that demonstrate creativity and ingenuity, which promote intellectual engagement and the advancement of UVA’s mission as a preeminent institution of higher learning. This passion for grant performance and organizational growth has led Hanson to serve on both the Oversight Committee and Development Committee of the Trust, where he now serves as Chair. Hanson is also a co-chair of his class reunion giving committee.

Hanson is a Managing Director with 1919 Investment Counsel, a boutique investment advisory firm focused on high-net-worth, family office, and institutional clients, for which he opened the Birmingham office in 2015. Previously, Hanson was the President of Trust Company of Sterne Agee and head of the family office group, which he began in 2011. Hanson’s personal and professional knowledge of planned giving and his work developing philanthropic strategies have been a great benefit to the University and the Jefferson Trust.

Hanson is a native of Birmingham, Alabama where he lives with his wife, Melissa, and two children. He also serves on the boards of CommerceOne Bank, Indian Springs School (Chair, Stewardship & Planned Giving), and the Sterne Agee Charitable Foundation (President). He is a member of the Rotary Club of Birmingham and past Chairman of the Birmingham Botanical Society.

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Each spring, The Jefferson Trust awards two $2,500 Intramural-Recreational Awards to club athletic teams that excel in the areas of commitment, leadership and service to the community. This year, the Running Club at UVA and Virginia Riding Team were recipients at an early April ceremony.

With over two hundred active members a season, the Running Club at UVA is one of the largest clubs on Grounds. Team members practice six days a week to train for the season’s upcoming meets, following workouts and training runs prepared by the team’s elected workout coordinators. Some members are not competitive in meets, but participate in the club to stay physically active with a fun, social group.

Challenging and dedicated training has made the Running Club competitive, both in their track and cross country meets; since 2016, they have had many athletes earn All-American status. This past season the men’s cross country team earned 3^rd place at the National Intercollegiate Running Club Association Cross Country Regionals, and the women’s cross country team had one All-American finisher, with a team finish of 8^th (out of 27). The Running Club also hosts an annual track meet in the spring and cross country meet in the fall, and both meets have drawn many teams from the mid-Atlantic region, garnering attention as one of the largest meets in the country.

When not running on the track or cross country course, the Running Club is busy in the Charlottesville running community. Each year they organize a charity 5k for the local chapter of Girls on the Run, as well as this year hosting a “Run-a-thon” for St. Jude’s. Also this year, the club worked with the Charlottesville Track Club to help execute the Charlottesville 10-miler with pre-race and race day volunteer efforts.

The Virginia Riding Team is comprised of 70 team members with varied riding experience, from true beginners to advanced riders. Members can choose to take lessons once or twice a week, ride without instruction as often as they like, and participate in a free clinic with a professional trainer each spring.

The Riding Team competes in the Intercollegiate Horse Show Association (IHSA) Circuit and Collegiate Cup, with each format offering unique riding opportunities. At IHSA riders draw a horse’s name out of a hat, then ride the horse with no warm-up, and at Collegiate Cup members compete on horses they have practiced with before. Both formats have been successful for UVA Riding; at IHSA the team placed second in the region this year, sent four individuals to regionals, and are sending three individuals to Zones. At the Collegiate Cup, the team has won Champion the last two years, and individual riders have placed highly as well. While some team members choose not to participate in competitions, the team works to cover the cost of showing so that competitors are never chosen based on an ability to financially afford the extra cost.

Additionally, the Riding Team works closely with the Charlottesville Area Riding Therapy (CART), sending volunteers throughout the semester to work with the horses and give lessons to children and adults with disabilities.

Both the Running Club and Riding Team pride themselves on their sense of community, inclusivity, and togetherness. Supporting each other in competition, training, and giving back to the Charlottesville community are keys that make these club sports successful and impactful for team members.

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The annual Madison Lane and Rugby Road Charitable Trust Visual Arts Prize is intended to expand students’ opportunities for creative expression and to showcase significant accomplishments in the Arts. A $2,500 award is presented through The Jefferson Trust in partnership with UVA Arts to one undergraduate or graduate student each spring. A student’s submitted work must be created while he or she is enrolled at UVA, and eligible medias include: drawing, painting, watercolor, film/video, photography or sculpture.

The 2019 Madison Lane and Rugby Road Charitable Trust Visual Arts Prize was awarded to Kirsten Hemrich for her painting Celestial Spheres #2. This 54” x 54” piece was created using oil, spray paint, and charcoal on canvas. Kirsten’s paintings are made over the course of many weeks during which she   layers diaristic drawings, text, and abstractions of celestial bodies. This particular painting references early astronomical diagrams, as well as the Roman god of doorways, “Janus.” Over time each layer gets buried and beaten back into the surface. Parts of the painting fall away, get reborn, and change entirely through an intuitive process. Even after the painting is finished, the surface will change ever slightly over time due to the materials used. For Kirsten, this ever-changing surface is a metaphor for our own personal narratives- “for how we weave the abstractions of our experiences into story and furthermore, identity. The story of the past is unending, always changing. This phenomenon is what I chase through my creative practice.”