Create stability for people in our community. Your support prevents evictions and provides food access.
After years in an abusive relationship. Madeline* made the decision to leave her partner and get a fresh start for herself and her children. However, as a stay-at-home mom, she had no income, and her partner controlled the household finances. On her own, she couldn’t afford the apartment her family was living in.
Fortunately, Madeline reached out to WayForward Resources and connected with a case manager. She discussed her need to find work, childcare, and an affordable place to live for her family. She also wanted to stay in her current neighborhood to allow her kids to remain focused and engaged in school and connected to their friends.
Together, she and her case manager worked on a planned move with these goals in mind. WayForward provided financial assistance that Madeline applied toward the remaining months’ rent at the too-expensive apartment and offered our food pantry as a resource option, which could allow her to save funds to pay the security deposit at a new place. Madeline and her family’s new apartment is much more affordable and still within her children’s school district.
Domestic violence is a leading cause of housing instability and homelessness for women. Survivors are often forced to leave their homes to escape abuse, only to then face barriers in obtaining and maintaining safe housing, including limited access to financial resources and discrimination by housing providers. Women who experience violence are also disproportionately more likely to experience food insecurity than the general population. Food security plays a vital role in a person’s well-being, affecting school, employment, and health outcomes.
With record demand for our food and housing services, your support is needed now more than ever.
Our food pantry is experiencing three times as many visits as we had only two years ago, and distributing the equivalent of almost 122,000 meals a month. Last year over 700 households received financial assistance to remain in stable housing, a 90% increase since 2019.
Your support helps families like Madeline’s feel safe and stabilized in their new beginnings.
Join us in building a strong community where everyone has enough food to eat and a warm place to sleep. Donate today to make a difference. Thank you!
Donate Now*A representative name and photo have been used to protect client confidentiality.
UPDATE: After May 1, 2025, if you haven’t re-registered already, you’ll be able to do so when you arrive before shopping.
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We are updating our food pantry check-in system. This means all food pantry guests must re-register before May 1, 2025, even if you already have a WayForward card. Please bring your WayForward card to re-registration.
You do not need an ID or any documents to register.
To make it easy, we have special re-registration days in April. If you come on one of these days, you may get a $10 Walmart gift card (while supplies last).
Re-Registration Dates:
April 9: 2:00 pm – 4:00 pm
April 10: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
April 15: 12:00 am – 2:00 pm
April 18: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
April 22: 12:00 am – 2:00 pm
April 24: 10:00 am – 12:00 pm
Starting May 1, if you haven’t re-registered, you must do so before shopping. If you have any questions, please call our main office at 608-836-7338 and ask for Meghan Sohns, our Senior Director of Programming.
We look forward to seeing you soon!
A year-end message from WayForward Executive Director Ellen Carlson
It’s been another year of unprecedented growth at WayForward. For an organization that focuses on providing the basic building blocks of stability–food and housing, growth is both positive and negative.
On one hand, we have made an impact on more people’s lives than ever before. Thanks to the support of the community, we have been able to serve over 13,000 people last year–more than twice as many as the year before. That means twice as many people have been able to avoid eviction and stay in their homes and have received the nutritious food they need.
On the other hand, our organizational growth has been driven by the tremendous rise in demand for our services. That’s why unprecedented growth is also cause for concern. We are seeing three times as many visits to our food pantry as we did just two years ago, and our case managers are booking emergency housing appointments out weeks in advance.
Numbers like these mean many visitors are coming to our food pantry for the first time. In fact, 50% of people who came to the food pantry last year were first-time visitors. Children and families with children are overrepresented. Around 75% percent of people who received food were in households with children. And nearly 100% of families served by our Connections program, a housing program that works with those in doubled-up housing situations, have children.
Key factors in this increased demand for our services include the rise in food prices, the population growth in Dane County and in Middleton and west Madison specifically, and perhaps most significantly, the increase in housing prices in our area. While we have a very low unemployment rate in Dane County, many of these jobs don’t pay enough to cover the rising cost of living here. Community members who were just barely making ends meet before are now unable to absorb a $150/month rent increase. With no increase in pay and nowhere cheaper to rent, they are turning to WayForward to bridge the gap.
These are big problems–problems that are greater than anything WayForward can address alone. And with the affordable housing gap widening and housing prices continuing to rise, we expect the number of people unable to cover the basic expenses of food and housing to continue to grow. We are committed to continuing to adapt, innovate and expand and to do all we can to make sure people have the food and stable housing they need to lay a solid foundation.
We also know that problems that are larger than us require solutions that are larger than us. We have already seen the community responding with growing support. Thank you. As we have shared with you what we are seeing, we are continuously met with offers to join the effort to build a strong community where everyone has the basic building blocks of stability. Because of your support, we have raised more dollars and brought in more community donated food this year than any previous year in our history. This is what has made it possible for us to serve more people than ever before.
In the months and years ahead, we will continue to need your support. As we expect to see demand continuing to increase, the only way we can meet it is with increased support. There are a number of ways you can still make a tax-deductible financial donation this year. Donations of your time or donations of food can also make an immediate difference. You can purchase items directly from our wish list or use our top 10 list to purchase items locally.
Donations like these help us address the immediate needs of the people coming in our doors every day. But we know that we must do more and dig deeper to address the larger issues that are leading to this increased need for food and housing support in our community. We invite you to learn more about these issues and add your voice to the conversations to develop larger, community-wide solutions. We will be hosting some opportunities in this coming year and sharing some opportunities hosted by others.
Our mission statement says we bring the community together to create food and housing security. We know the only way to create stability is through a community-wide effort. Thank you for joining with us this past year. We look forward to continuing to work together in 2025.
Sincerely,
Ellen Carlson, Executive Director
Donate“I love the idea of supporting a cause that matters to me on Giving Tuesday. Middleton, Cross Plains and the greater West side of Madison is a wonderful community, yet there are many who struggle to feed their family or keep up with rent. I feel a personal connection to make my donation local and help those in my own community. WayForward has seen demand triple in the food pantry over the past two years. As I have learned while serving on the Board of Directors, food selection and availability have also become more of a challenge. We have all faced times of difficulty and challenge, supporting our neighbors in times of need is what makes our community strong. If you are able, please consider making a Giving Tuesday donation. Your donation, of any size, will make a difference.”
Kate Nisbet, WayForward Resources Board Member
(Pictured on the far right in photo)
You can join community members like Kate by making a difference on Giving Tuesday. Follow along on Facebook on December 3rd!
When Silver Lining Taekwon-do held its first Black Belt test in May 2017, staff, friends and families of the eleven Black Belt candidates donated funds to WayForward Resources (then-Middleton Outreach Ministry).
Since then, the Middleton martial arts school’s twice-a-year black belt tests have also served as a mini-fundraiser to support WayForward’s food and housing programs, with owners Mathiam and Laura Mbow matching contributions.
“At Silver Lining Taekwon-Do, we believe in the power of community and being there for one another. We believe that when everyone does better, we all do well,” the couple writes. “It is for that reason that we are proud to be a supporter of WayForward which does so much goodness in our community helping those who are less fortunate. Thank you, WayForward for all you do and you can always count on Silver Lining Taekwon-Do to help in any way we can.”
We are grateful to everyone who has provided generous financial support to WayForward Resources this year.
As you make your year-end giving plans, please consider talking with your tax or other financial advisors about joining our community efforts to provide food access and housing stability in one of the following ways:*
MAKE A GIFT FROM YOUR IRA
Qualified charitable distributions (QCDs) from your individual retirement account (IRA) are still tax-free. Anyone age 70 ½ or older may receive QCD treatment for certain transfers of up to $105,000 from their IRA directly to a qualified charity. Transfers qualifying as QCDS are not included in taxable income and reduce the balance of your retirement account (on which you and your heirs will ultimately pay tax). You can direct your QCDs to one or more qualified charitable organizations of your choice.
Note: Be sure to confirm with your advisor that the transfer meets the requirements to be treated as a QCD.
OPEN A DONOR ADVISED FUND
If you want to retain flexibility in the causes you support, consider establishing a donor-advised fund. You can plan a charitable tax deduction this year and retain the flexibility to distribute gifts to charities later or over multiple years.
GIVE APPRECIATED STOCK
Gifts of appreciated securities may provide an increased tax deduction. If you have stocks or other securities that are worth more than you paid for them, and you’ve owned them for at least 12 months, consider giving those to charity. This may avoid capital gains tax and allow a charitable deduction for the securities’ full fair market value. Your deduction for donations of appreciated stock or securities to public charities is limited to 30% of your adjusted gross income each year, but you can carry over any excess deductions for up to five additional years.
Note: Since gifts of appreciated stock can take time to process, coordinate with your financial advisor as soon as possible to ensure a transfer can be completed by year end.
*Thank you to Madison Community Foundation and Wegner CPAs for providing information for this article.
A few months ago, we shared with our community that we were experiencing record demand at our food pantry. Visits had increased nearly threefold in two years. Despite spending more money on food than at any other time in our over 40 year history, we were struggling to keep up with this demand. This was leading to emptier shelves and fewer choices for people in our community who needed food.
We set a goal of raising $150,000 to buy additional food for our food pantry. And you responded. We greatly appreciate the people in our community who have made donations over these last couple of months. Your response has made a difference. We have been able to purchase more food, meaning there is more food on our shelves ready for the long line of people waiting outside for our doors to open. This could not have been possible without your generosity.
Once we open our doors, most of the food on the shelves is gone in a few hours. But there’s good news — your ongoing support means we can keep restocking the pantry shelves and keep providing access to nutritious food. We can keep buying more proteins, bread, eggs, milk and other basics people rely on us for. You answered our call to action this summer after we joined forces with 35 other local food pantries and gathered at the state Capitol to release a letter to the community. Our message began with a simple call to action: “Dane County, we need your help.”
Your response helped us fill a critical food gap. But the pressure on our pantry is not going away.
Food pantries continue to face a serious challenge as food insecurity rises. Last year we distributed the equivalent of 1.3 million meals, an unprecedented Because You Answered the Call number in the history of our organization. We led this coalition to sound an alarm about the rising demand for food assistance and the need for both immediate community support and longer term solutions to fill the gap.
The letter from the pantries was published as a full-page ad in the Wisconsin State Journal in June. It was sponsored by United Way of Dane County and the Wisconsin State Journal and supported by Second Harvest Foodbank of Southern Wisconsin.
Our letter explained what is driving demand, including higher food prices, dramatic increases in rent and the fact that federal assistance that helped people make ends meet during the pandemic is gone. In Dane County, which is growing faster than anywhere else in the state, nearly 13% of kids were food insecure in 2022, up from 7.5% in 2021. That was before our food pantries started seeing drastic increases in demand.
The result of this increased need is pantries are spending more money on food than ever before as the options they have to keep shelves stocked continue to shift and are more limited than they were just a few years ago. Buying food in bulk is more expensive now and the traditional suppliers of free food for pantries can’t keep up with the demand.
WayForward has worked hard to stretch resources, space, and teams as far as possible. But to keep up with the demand, the pantry has had to increase spending on food by 240% over the last two years.
The letter from the local food pantries also urged local, county, state, and federal officials, as well as other community leaders, to help find long-term solutions to food insecurity. We were joined at our Capitol press conference by local officials and community leaders, including Madison Mayor Satya Rhodes-Conway, Middleton Mayor Emily Kuhn, Janel Heinrich, Executive Director of Public Health Madison & Dane County, state legislators, county supervisors, and other invited guests. The event drew broad coverage from local media.
“We can’t do it alone,” the letter said. “It will take all of us to meet this challenge and make sure our neighbors don’t experience hunger. We are committed to doing all we can. We are asking you to join us.”
It’s not easy to say it, but the need shows no sign of slowing down. Every month here is busier than the one before. We’re going to have to continue to buy more food to meet that need. Having your ongoing support and knowing you’re with us means the world to our staff, volunteers and the people in our community who rely on us for access to food.
There wasn’t a specific goal when the team at Middleton-based NET started a month-long food drive in response to the rising need at WayForward and other food pantries across Dane County.
But that was before the competition got serious.
Once the team at NET (Network Engineering Technologies) split into four teams, collecting food each week to earn the pieces to a 1,000-piece puzzle, the potential impact of their efforts quickly took shape.
After just one week, the company brought in 650 pounds of food. Each team of 25 people took advantage of the chance to earn five puzzle pieces for bringing in meal ingredients like pasta and sauce or canned chicken and rice. NET launched the drive following a collective call for help from three dozen food Dane County food pantries.
“With people still working a hybrid or fully at home schedule I just wasn’t sure what I could hope to expect – but people have blown my mind with how generous they’ve been!” says Laura Duffield, NET’s Accounts Receivable Manager, who led the effort. “Making it a competition between groups has also been a big driver of success.”
Another motivating factor was the decision to drop NET’s donated items off weekly at WayForward’s pantry warehouse, she says. “It’s great to get a group of people over there to unload so they can see where their donations are going, and helps to feel ‘refreshed’ for the next round of weekly donations.”
Week two of NET’s drive focused on personal hygiene, with donations including laundry detergent and period products. Teams competing to collect more puzzle pieces brought in another 437 pounds for the pantry.
“Now that we’re two weeks in and have a little over 1,000 pounds donated, I’m making it our goal to hit a TON of food by the time the drive is over,” Duffield said after week two.
After week three, Net brought in another 1,083 pounds of pantry staples including cooking oil, flour and sugar, bringing their running total to over a ton of donated food and personal items for the pantry.
Another benefit to the effort? Building more connections between team members who are remote and those working in the office, Duffield says.
Halfway through the drive, one of the teams had almost completed their puzzle. That moved captains for the other teams to email their members to drum up support and offer to use monetary donations sent via Venmo to do the shopping. “I think this has helped people who might feel overwhelmed going to the store and bringing it all in,” Duffield says.
In the fourth week, the drive theme was peanut butter & jelly and cereal. The final week focused on collecting school supplies for WayForward’s Back to School Program. Teams could also earn puzzle pieces throughout the competition for bringing in items from WayForward’s Most Needed Items List.
The winning team would get bragging rights and and the coveted “banana trophy.” The reward for everyone included a celebration lunch with yard games.
But the biggest goal was for all four teams to complete their puzzles — and bring in as much food as possible.
In the end, NET brought in 2,438 pounds of food and 140 pounds of School supplies, an effort that Duffield says speaks to the spirit everyone brought to the effort.
“I was lucky to have a great group of volunteers who have done most of the heavy lifting and some great team captains who have really stepped up and rallied support,” Duffield says. “I would tell another company that wants to do a drive to try and not feel overwhelmed and be hopeful at how generous people will actually be.”
At the age of 67, Vicki feels she is stable in her housing for the first time in 10 years.
She credits the support she received last year from WayForward. The financial assistance from our Housing Stability program helped cover entry costs so Vicki could move out of our service area into subsidized housing for seniors in another community. WayForward case managers work with Housing Stability program participants to solve immediate needs and work toward their long-term goals.
Once Vicki was settled in her new home, she was able to pay closer attention to her health. A month after relocating, she discovered she had cancer. It took some time to convince her doctors, but after surgical treatment she is now cancer-free.
Vicki says she gives a great deal of credit for her stability to the Housing Stability program and told her case manager that WayForward helped save her life.
“Working with seniors, I have the privilege of witnessing firsthand the profound impact that community engagement and sustainability efforts have on our community.
We believe in fostering a sense of strength, purpose, and belonging, not just within our own senior community, but throughout Dane County. This is why I am deeply committed to supporting WayForward Resources.
Our efforts in the Back-to-School drives, plastic bag drives, and food drives are more than just events; they are lifelines that connect us to our community. It is also an honor to serve on the WayForward Leadership Committee. These initiatives are instrumental in promoting community wellbeing and sustainability, benefiting both the seniors we serve and the community as a whole.
Supporting WayForward Resources allows us to extend our reach and amplify our impact. Together, we are building a stronger, more resilient community where everyone, regardless of age, can thrive. It is an honor to be part of this journey, and I am grateful for the opportunity to give back to a community that has given us so much.”
—Taylor Powless, marketing director, Cardinal View Senior Living