Matthew Byers, senior editor

Henrietta Van Maanen has been a volunteer at Warren Wilson College since 2000. The many roles she has performed at the College have included working in the mailroom, purchasing, and the Academic Department, as well as helping to produce the College Catalog. In 2006, she was honored with the Volunteer of the Year award. She is also one of eight residential volunteers, for whom the College provides housing.

“I’ve gotten acquainted with many people and have felt appreciated,” Van Maanen said, “The [volunteer] program has worked so well and it’s something that has benefited both the College and the volunteers.”

A complicated legal situation is now facing the College that threatens to end the volunteer program as it currently exists. After June 30, volunteers will no longer have the option to receive housing.

Van Maanen,  who volunteers through the Presbyterian Church, also has a home in Iowa.  She officially retired in 2006 and had been planning to leave the College for unrelated reasons. If she had wanted to stay, however, she said could not have afforded the rent.

A Complicated Issue 

“None of us wanted this to happen,” Larry Modlin, Vice President of Business Affairs, said.

In the fall semester, a new volunteer inquired as to what he should write on his income tax return. The Business Affairs Department consulted with the College’s attorneys, who discovered that room and board qualifies as payment in exchange for work, and is thus taxable.

“What triggered this was the unequivocal statement by our attorneys that said that we need to be taxing volunteers who receive room and board,” Modlin said, “Another one of our lawyers then found that if they are going to get paid, they need to receive minimum wage. Room and board cannot be substituted for cash.”

While many volunteers live off campus and work full or part time, the College has historically provided volunteers who wish to live on campus with housing and a health stipend to cover the cost of insurance. In exchange, the volunteers worked at the College full-time. While the numbers are variable, the cost of maintaining housing, combined with the stipend, came out to approximately $3000 annually.

This new legal revelation means that the College now needs to be either paying volunteers minimum wage or, in the case of “true” volunteers, nothing at all. Thus, the cost of the volunteer program has risen drastically while volunteers receive fewer benefits. For this semester, volunteers had the option of either receiving room and board plus minimum wage, or paying minimal rent on their houses while not receiving any compensation. Modlin estimates that while some of the additional cost of paying volunteers minimum wage is offset by rent and no longer paying a stipend, residential volunteers now cost the College twice as much as they did previously.

As a result, after June 30, volunteers will not have the option to receive any payment, and those who wish to live on campus will have to pay rent.

Not in it for the Money

“I didn’t come here to earn money,”  Buz Eichman said, “I came to give of myself to help others.”

Buz and his wife, Marilyn, have both been volunteers at Warren Wilson since 2002, and live in one of the College’s modest homes. Buz currently works on the Electric Crew, and, like Van Maanen, arrived at the College through the Presbyterian Church. Buz explained that he intends to stay at the College, but he does not feel the need to receive compensation.

That volunteers are liable to be taxed also raises uncomfortable questions about which volunteer positions are essential, and which the College can survive without.

“It’s forced us to see which volunteers are irreplaceable,” Modlin said, “Those positions for which we would hire someone for a full time job.”

The College has offered a few volunteers minimum wage to stay on full-time.

“There’s a moral dilemma,” Modlin said, “It looks like we’re paying minimum wage when the work that is done is worth more than that.”

 Van Maanen agreed.
“If you’re going to pay people, then you need to pay them what they’re worth,” she said.

What Now?

“I’m going to give it another year and see how it goes,” Win Southworth said.

Southworth has been at Warren Wilson off and on since 2000. He has done, and currently does, a wide range of jobs on campus. He currently contributes to CAD Crew, Wellness, and assists the Environmental Action Coalition. He is also the supervisor of the Yearbook Crew.

“The big detriment is the future of the volunteer program,” Southworth said, “It’s going to be tougher to attract people.”

 Modlin says, regretfully, that the volunteer program is going to shrink.

“In the future, the voluntter program will look more like other volunteer programs, in which nothing is exchanged,” Modlin said.

Buz Eichman said that he suggested other possibilities for rescuing the program. One was that volunteers who work for the church are tax-exempt. Another was that room and board could be considered a “taxable fringe benefit.” The College’s attorneys advised against pursuing these courses of action.

Both Van Maanen and Eichman point to other organizations that continue to administer a policy in which volunteers are provided room and board and not taxed. These include the Menaul School in Albuquerque, New Mexico and the Stony Point Conference Center in New York.

 “Our administration is afraid, and I’m not sure that they have to be,” Van Maanen said.

Southworth said that he understands that the College did not have a choice. He hopes, however, that these events spur people to take action in local and federal government.

 “To bring back the volunteer program as we knew it and loved it, we would need to make big changes,” Southworth said.

The new volunteer policy does not affect the numerous volunteers who live elsewhere and receive only lunch in return for their services. For those who live on campus, the future is uncertain. But, in the meantime, there is work to be done, and there are still plenty of people around who are happy to do it.