Sandra* has a disability that causes her a lot of pain. She relies on her electric wheelchair to get around and maintain independence. When Sandra’s enhanced FoodShare benefits ended, she couldn’t afford to buy both healthy food and pay her electric bill. Sandra faced a difficult choice: purchase food or keep her power on—the power she needed not just for basic living but also for her mobility.
Sandra contacted WayForward Resources for help preventing her power being disconnected. WayForward was able to send some funds toward her electric bill and provided her with food deliveries from our pantry twice a month. “It’s been a huge help,” Sandra tells us.
Her story reflects the stark challenges faced by Americans with disabilities in meeting their basic needs. According to the USDA’s Economic Research Service (2023), food insecurity affects 33% of U.S. households with an adult who is out of the labor force due to disability, compared to just 10% of households without adults with a disability. This means households with an adult with a disability are over three times more likely to struggle with consistent access to adequate food.
The connection between disability and food insecurity is further documented by Feeding America’s 2022 research. Among the 79 million older adults over 60 in the United States, those with disabilities experience food insecurity at more than twice the rate of older adults without disabilities. These statistics highlight how disabilities can create compounding challenges, often forcing people to choose between essential needs like food, medicine, and utilities.
Your donations to WayForward help neighbors like Sandra maintain their independence and access to nutritious food. When you give, you provide critical support that provides housing stability and food security, and helps our community members meet their basic needs.
*A representative photo and name have been used to maintain client confidentiality
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.
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.”
WayForward was proud to nominate Roots & Wings as Outstanding Philanthropic Foundation and Christian Huber for Outstanding Youth in Philanthropy for the National Philanthropy Day Awards.
Both were honored at a ceremony at the Overture Center in November.
Roots & Wings Foundation is an essential partner that has generously donated nearly $500,000 in unrestricted funds to WayForward, increasing their funding over time to reflect the increased needs for food and housing access.
“The trust Roots & Wings places in us to carry out our mission is incredibly valuable,” says WayForward Executive Director Ellen Carlson, who accepted the award on behalf of the foundation.
Huber, now 14, started his journey as a philanthropist when he was eight years old, operating a cookie and lemonade stand in the summers to raise money for nonprofits.
The last few years, Christian has supported WayForward. “I like helping so many people be part of doing something good,” he says.
A year-end message from WayForward Executive Director Ellen Carlson
At WayForward, we believe that when everyone has access to key building blocks for stability, we can transform our community into the kind of place we want it to be.
This year has presented many challenges to this vision of our community. When I sat down to write this letter last year, our food pantry was providing the equivalent of 54,000 meals per month. Now we’re distributing 115,000 per month. We see the same pressure on our housing stability programs, setting a record for the amount of financial assistance we provided in November.
When I look ahead I see no sign of the demand plateauing.
Numbers like these can be overwhelming. But I’m sharing them with you because they tell us a lot about what is happening in our community. And these numbers represent the experiences of people in our community: people who are standing in line outside in the cold two hours before our food pantry opens and people who are sitting in our lobby waiting to meet with case managers to discuss housing assistance.
Experts report the rise in demand is due to the end of pandemic-era support, general inflation and the steep increase in housing costs in our community, which causes people to focus even more of their income on paying rent. We have never turned anyone away from getting food, but we have had to put some limits on the amount of food people can take. We worry about how we and other local food pantries can continue to ensure that everyone in our community has access to nutritious food.
It is hard to hear these things. But this challenging moment also includes milestones to celebrate.
In the week prior to Thanksgiving, about 3,000 people received food from our pantry, including additional ingredients needed to make holiday meals for their families. We are on track to distribute the equivalent of more than one million pounds of food this year.
More than 600 households received financial assistance last year. As the Madison area continues to experience some of the highest rent increases in the country, this support allowed families to avoid eviction and stay in their homes, where they can eat dinner together and have a place for kids to do homework at night. In addition, the first participants have graduated from our Connections program, which means over the last year they have transitioned from doubled-up housing into homes of their own and no longer need financial assistance.
Your support is how we have continued to meet the need up to this point and stay focused on our mission. You ensure that families have access to nutritious food, including the nearly 3,000 people who received food for holiday meals. Your support also meant more than 600 students started the school year with backpacks loaded with the supplies they needed and 1,700 people received gift cards to help stretch their dollars a little farther this holiday season.
Every day, I am grateful for our volunteers, who have grown in numbers and put in more hours this year than last year. They adapt to our changing needs and adjust their to-do lists to tackle what is needed. We see so much patience and generosity as they work to help ensure people have critical access to food. I’m also thankful for the people in our community who recognize the impact of our work and serve as powerful advocates for WayForward and the people we serve. We will continue to need your strong voices in the year to come so our neighbors can go to bed at night knowing local food pantries – the last safety net for the most basic of all needs – will still be able to serve them.
There are a number of ways you can still make a tax deductible financial donation this year. Donations of your time and food can also make an immediate difference, including buying items directly from our wish list listed on our website, to help us continue to offer a variety of options to the people who visit our pantry.
By joining forces to provide our time, expertise, and resources, we can provide more people access to nutritious food and stable housing.
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 $100,000 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 for providing this information.
The Mulcahy Family is providing a #GivingTuesday challenge gift this year in hopes of motivating future generations to give back.
“WayForward as Middleton Outreach Ministry (MOM) provided a way for my family to participate in our community’s care for those who found themselves in need of support,” says Patricia Mulcahy. “When our children were young, I served on the MOM Board of Directors representing my parish and provided transportation for an elderly woman through the Project for Older People. Over the years the organization’s outreach has evolved and broadened and the community has continued to step up. Our children now have children of their own and this gift is to encourage them to support others through their communities.”