The Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge’s interactive photography project — which highlights stories exploring local housing insecurity issues — now adorns the walls of classroom 207 in the university’s Carpenter Academic Hall.

It’s the classroom dedicated to the Susan Warfield Caples Social Work Program. Caples was instrumental in helping to add the social work major to the university’s curriculum in 2007, and later endowing the program to ensure its sustainability in 2015.

“When we conceived this exhibit, we hoped that it would travel throughout the community and spark conversations about housing. We never imagined that it would find a permanent home,” said Dan Layman, CEO of the Community Foundation of the Central Blue Ridge. “Then the social work faculty and staff at Mary Baldwin expressed interest in having portions of the exhibit on permanent display as tools for classroom discussion. Their interest in the exhibit affirmed the power that these images and stories contain for everyone right now and into the future.”

This is Home photographer Kate Simon accompanied two Community Foundation employees — Miriam Burrows and Chris Lassiter — to present This is Home in Lora Cantwell’s social work class in the spring.

“I was a teaching a class on human behavior,” said Cantwell, assistant professor and field director of social work at Mary Baldwin. “It has a lot do with systems, and how they impact people, and how that impacts behaviors within the individual. The students responded well to it. They were attentive, and also quiet, just consuming the information.”

In a small community, problems like homelessness and housing insecurity can be difficult to perceive.

The project helped the students bring the issues closer to home.

“The other piece that was big for our students was the localization of the issue,” said Mary Clay Thomas, associate dean and director of the school of professional studies. “As juniors in the social work program, they are learning about poverty and working with underprivileged and under-represented populations.

“This is not something that when you first come to Staunton you are aware of. The photographs really brought the localization of what poverty looks like in our community to the classroom.”

Shortly after the presentation, Thomas and Cantwell pitched the idea to the Community Foundation about making This is Home a permanent exhibit on campus.

“This is Home is a beautiful initiative, and we can bring some longevity to that, and it not just be for this one pocket of students. It can bring fluidity of exposure to the pictures,” Cantwell said. “The more we can integrate the Staunton community and the Mary Baldwin community, it’s great for everybody.”

Thomas believes it’s also a fitting way to honor the legacy of Caples.

“A few years ago, we gave this classroom in honor of her,” she said. “It has not anything on the walls.

We have this classroom, but we hadn’t done too much to make it our own. This felt like a perfect partnership for us to have a place be able to show the photographs and tell the stories. It fits with social work, and it’s also in honor of Sue and the legacy she’s left for us at Mary Baldwin.”

Simon, who studied sociology at Mary Baldwin, is excited for her photographs to have a permanent location on the campus.

“I feel really honored to be part of the education,” Simon said, “and to be a part of what these students take out into the world, and make a difference themselves.”