City Life

Women in Focus, Inc. signature fundraising event supports youth in Madison

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Women in Focus, Inc. will host its annual “I Have A Dream” Scholarship Ball this Saturday to support its various scholarship programs.

The all-women organization dedicated to promoting educational achievement and excellence for students of color in the Madison community hosts its annual fundraising event on the Saturday before Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday. The organization hosted its first “I Have A Dream” Scholarship Ball in 1986. Proceeds from the event fund several scholarships that are awarded to students of color heading to college. The scholarships are awarded to high school seniors, as well as adults returning to continue higher education. In the past several years, more than $452,000 in scholarships have been awarded to students in Dane County.

City Life

Seven Organizations Join Community Shares of Wisconsin

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Seven new nonprofits last week joined Community Shares of Wisconsin. The new members join 65 Wisconsin-based nonpartisan and nonprofit organizations that are working to advance social justice, protect the environment and defend civil rights in Dane County and across Wisconsin. The CSW board of directors unanimously approved the membership of the new organizations. The new members of CSW are:

Mentoring Positives, a mentoring program working directly with kids and families throughout Dane County;

MOSES (Madison Organizing in Strength, Equality and Solidarity), an interfaith organization aiming to promote social justice with a focus of ending mass incarceration;

Omega School, a Madison-based alternate school that provides individualized instruction to help adults prepare for and obtain a GED/HSED credential;

Orgullo Latinx LGBT+ of Dane County, an organization working to build a safe, ethnically equitable and racially just place for the Latinx LGBT+ community in Dane County;

Positive Women for Change, an initiative providing coaching services to underserved women who face adversity and financial disarray;

Rebalanced-Life Wellness Association, an organization that wants to ensure that Black men and boys have the opportunity to live fuller, healthier lives;

and, Voces de la Frontera, a membership-based community organizations that aims to protect and expand civil and workers’ rights. “We are thrilled to welcome these new organizations into our community of nonprofits,” said CSW Executive Director Cheri Dubiel in a press release.

City Life

Annual Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison Bike Collection Day Kicks Off Jan. 12

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Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison will collect gently used bikes on Saturday, Jan. 12, as the first phase of its third season. The bikes will then be refurbished and donated to 2,500 area youth later this spring. Founded in 2016, Free Bikes 4 Kidz Madison (FB4K) gave away some 400 bikes in its first year. In 2018, they were able to refurbish and give away 1,100 bikes.