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

Madison Commons Media Digest, January 13, 2019

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Commemorate Martin Luther King Day in Madison, Lisa, Speckhard Pasque, Capital Times, Jan. 12. Madison and Dane Co. United Against Fascism and Wisconsin Patriots Alliance protests bring hundreds downtown Saturday morning, Adam Duxter, Channel3000, Jan 13. Soglin seeking $165,000 for security at Tree Lane housing for homeless families, Abigail Becker, CT, Jan.

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.

City Life

Hmong holiday lunch offers chance to celebrate community

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Members of Madison’s Hmong community are hosting a lunch for residents to celebrate the holidays together on Friday. The holiday lunch will be held in the lower level of the Catholic Multicultural Center, and starts at noon. The lunch, which is the first event Hmoob KajSiab will host during the winter holidays, follows up the program’s event around Thanksgiving. Hmoob KajSiab works with elderly Hmong, Cambodians and Miao to help them socialize and address mental health issues. “KajSiab” means peacefulness and calm and encapsulates the idea of being free from stress, tension and worry.

City Life

December 2018 Backyard Heroes

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Community Shares, a partner of Madison Commons, recognizes two volunteers each month. The volunteers come from Community Shares' member groups and are selected for their service to the community and to community issues. Jake Hardwood, Rape Crisis Center

Jake Hardwood volunteers with the Rape Crisis Center (RCC). At the RCC, Hardwood has dedicated his efforts to the Safer Bar program where he helps educate employees of Madison businesses on the subject of sexual violence intervention. As a volunteer, he has assisted in the training of staff at alcohol-serving establishments to help them better identify sexually aggressive behavior.

City Life

City Engineering plans to track flood damage with new website

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The City of Madison recently launched a new website to report storm-related problems following the historic flooding in late August. More than 10 inches of rain fell on Madison over the course of eight hours on August 20. Immediate flash flooding occurred, and Madison’s lakes swelled to historic highs. Lake Mendota rose 16 inches, and Lake Monona rose more than 10 inches above it’s record elevation. Some areas of the city saw five-feet deep flood waters.

City Life

Northside Listening Session Opens Dialog Between Police, Community

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Describe a time when you felt like a part of your identity (your race, your gender, your job) was being profiled or stereotyped. What was the experience and how did it make you feel? That was the question for residents and police who attended a listening circle on the North Side of Madison on Wednesday night. As the night wore on it became clear that everyone has a story about how they’ve been made to feel profiled. Stereotyped.

City Life

SSFP: Local Neighborhood Foundation Helps Students Develop Real-Life Skills

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The Mellowhood Foundation’s Summer Initiative is a paid summer program in the southwest Madison Meadowood neighborhood that teaches a large age-range of children about independence and real-world responsibilities. The initiative draws on the knowledge students already have from school, while also teaching them skills such as independence and self-determination. Mellowhood student Amaria has learned valuable lessons through the program, such as “working hard, getting good grades, and failing from time to time.”

The initiative focuses on team-building through activities such as gardening and group prayer. Students work together to develop menu plans using the food they grow and are served lunch and dinner. There is also an emphasis on helping students improve in core academic subjects like math, science, and English.

City Life

November 2018 Backyard Heroes

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Community Shares, a partner of Madison Commons, recognizes two volunteers each month. The volunteers come from Community Shares' member groups and are selected for their service to the community and to community issues. Hannah Nowakowski, Sierra Club Foundation-John Muir Chapter

Hannah Nowakowski has been an invaluable member to the Sierra Club – John Muir Chapter. As a student intern for the organization, Hannah showed a strong commitment to the organization’s goals of protecting natural areas and promoting responsible use of the earth’s resources. Through her work as an intern, Hannah has helped champion efforts to move Wisconsin away from energy production that depends on dangerous oil pipelines.

Arts

From Oaxaca to Madison: Stitching with a common thread

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They call themselves Las Hormigas Bordadoras, or the Embroidering Ants, for their town, San Francisco Tanivet in the Mexican state of Oaxaca, which their ancestors called “the town of the ants.”

They work with materials beloved in the U.S. — quilting and embroidery — but their “story cloths,” layered with patterned fabric and stitched words, tell stories that many Americans never hear: stories of the dangers and heartbreak of migration. And for the last week, two of these five artists have been in Madison sharing their work. A Warm Reception

At a reception in October at Central Library, visitors pored over the framed cloth scenes, which have been on display since August, and hundreds of quilted squares covering the tables. Many portrayed just one or two small human figures separated by a vast desert, border wall or the impassable distance between migrants and their homes. Border crossing and the necessity of migration are heavy topics for the Hormigas.