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FOOD PANTRY & OFFICE CLOSED TUESDAY, JANUARY 21 FOR INCLEMENT WEATHER.

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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

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Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals. To see the wonderful recipes we’ve gathered, click on the links below.

Amazon Wish List Donate to Holiday Meals

Best Stuffing

Cranberry-Cherry Compote

BBQ Slow Cooker Chicken

Natilla Colombiana Postre Navideño

Overnight Raisin French Toast

 

 

 

Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals.

Amazon Wish List Donate for Holiday Meals

Monica explains that Thanksgiving is her family’s favorite holiday! “Stuffing has always been the center piece of our Thanksgiving feast; dating back four generations. My great-grandmother, grandmothers and my mom were all farm women. Nothing went to waste. Their stuffing included the liver, gizzard and heart of the bird. My daughter and I chose this vegetarian version to honor our matriarchs and be bird friendly.”

Preheat oven to 350. Grease 9×13 baking dish. Tear or cut break into 1 inch cubes. Place in very large bowl. Melt butter in large skillet over medium heat. Add leeks, celery, salt, garlic and pepper. Sauté for 5 minutes. Pour leek mixture over bread. Sprinkle with herbs. Toss with hands. Pour over 1 1/2 cups broth. Mix then add eggs. Mix. Transfer to pan and and cover with foil. Refrigerate until ready to bake. Sprinkle with olive oil. Bake for 30 minutes. (Adapted from Loveandlemons.com)

Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals.

Amazon Wish List Donate for Holiday Meals

This beloved recipe has been made for over 20 years! The tradition started because members of the family, including Mike who shared this recipe, love both cherries and cranberries.

Ingredients:

Measure the orange juice and add water, if necessary, to make 1 cup.  Pour into a saucepan and add the remaining ingredients, stirring to dissolve the brown sugar.  Bring to a boil over medium-high heat; reduce the heat and simmer, uncovered, until the cranberries pop, about 10 minutes.  Let cool.  Cover and refrigerate up to 10 days.  Makes 12 servings.

 

Raices Latinx, the UW Credit Union Hispanic and Latino Employee Resource Group, answered our call for community help in addressing the current food shortage in our pantry. The group organized a food drive that gathered over 400 pounds of food to help meet the increased need. “We couldn’t have had the outcome we did without everyone’s participation,” says Jessica De Vicente, Assistant Branch Manager and Co-Lead for the group. “That ‘small’ donation really adds up when many people contribute collectively. Overall, we are proud of how excited everyone was throughout this drive in the joy of being able to help others. Community matters and it’s heartwarming when we all come together for a good cause.” UW Credit Union also supports WayForward through generous unrestricted grants for food and housing access.

Join UW Credit Union in supporting WayForward this Giving Tuesday. Follow us on Facebook to join the fun!

 

Food and housing are the basic building blocks of stability. When we work together, we can build a strong community where everyone has food to eat and a warm place to sleep.

*Jenna had always ensured that she and her son had the basics covered – a safe place to sleep, enough food and funds to cover medical appointments, clothes and other essentials. Then last year, her apartment rent rose beyond what she could afford. The stability she had worked so hard to maintain disappeared and the little family suddenly found themselves homeless. “I was afraid, devastated, and demoralized,” Jenna said. She temporarily moved back in with her parents, but the situation was not sustainable. Unsure how to move forward, she felt like she didn’t have any options.

That’s when Jenna learned about WayForward. She began visiting the food pantry, relieving the stress of knowing where their next meal would from. She found free clothes for her son at the Clothing Center. Meanwhile, Jenna enrolled in one of WayForward’s housing programs which provided rental assistance as well as case management to keep her and her son in stable housing and avoid a return to homelessness. “With my case manager’s help, I was able to secure a two-bedroom apartment this year in a safe and beautiful part of town!” Jenna is also preparing for the future, “I have taken classes to help me budget wisely and learn to manage my money so when I have to pay rent alone next year, I will be able to do so with confidence,” she  said. Jenna is no longer afraid for the future. Instead, she sees a path forward filled with possibilities. *name and identifying details changed

The basic building blocks matter. Everyone needs healthy food and stable housing to thrive. Children do better in school and have better mental and physical health outcomes when they have reliable access to food. Families who stay in their homes and avoid eviction have stronger employment opportunities, lower level of toxic stress and fewer hospital visits.

Community support makes successes like Jenna and her son’s possible. Give today to build a strong community.
GIVE TODAY

Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals.

Amazon Wish List Donate for Holiday Meals

 

Tara shared this favorite recipe the whole family can enjoy during the busy holiday season!

BBQ Chicken (Slow Cooker)

Ingredients:

Directions:

Mix everything together but the chicken. Place chicken breasts in the slow cooker (frozen is ok!) and pour the mixture over the top of the chicken. Put on ‘low’ for 4-6 hours. Check chicken and shred around four hours and let simmer in the sauce. Eat on buns or however you enjoy your BBQ chicken.

Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals.

Amazon Wish List Donate for Holiday Meals

Esta receta tiene recuerdos muy especiales para mí, porque para prepararla nos reuníamos todos en la terraza de la casa de mi abuela donde llegaban primos, tíos, abuelos y hasta vecinos. Se preparaba en una olla gigante y nos turnábamos para mezclarla mientras esperábamos la noche para repartir la natilla y regalos. Por esto esta receta es muy importante para mi y mi familia y además es deliciosa y se acompaña con buñuelos y chocolate.

Ingredientes:

  1. Coloque 1 taza de leche en un tazón pequeño agregue la maicena y revuelva para que se disuelva, deje a un lado.
  2. Ponga la leche de coco y el coco rallado en la licuadora y mezcle hasta que esté suave y reservar.
  3. Coloque el resto de la leche y las astillas canela en una olla mediana y llevar la mezcla a hervir a fuego medio-bajo. Cuando la leche este un poco caliente, pero no hirviendo, agregue la mezcla de coco.
  4. Cuando la leche empiece a hervir, añadir la leche condensada, el azúcar y la sal. Mezcle bien con una cuchara de madera. Agregue la mezcla de leche y la maicena y continuar revolviendo constantemente.
  5.  Agregar el extracto de vainilla. Reduzca el fuego a bajo y continuar revolviendo hasta que espese la Natilla, unos 10 a 20 minutos. Añadir la mantequilla, mezclar y retirar del fuego. Retirar las astillas de canela.
  6. Sírvalo en un molde grande o moldes para postres individuales.
  7. Espolvorear canela en polvo en la parte superior y deje que se enfríe a temperatura ambiente durante al menos 2 horas. Refrigere hasta que esté listo para servir.

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.” 

Throughout the holiday season, we’ll share some favorite recipes from pantry guests and volunteers. You can help our pantry guests make their holiday favorites by purchasing items from our Amazon Wish List or making a financial donation to help our food pantry purchase ingredients for holiday meals.

Amazon Wish List Donate

OVERNIGHT RAISIN FRENCH TOAST

Janet is a long-time WayForward volunteer in our food pantry who shared this recipe. “This was a holiday brunch favorite that my grandkids always requested! ‘Gramma, can we have that yummy toast today?'”

Place half of bread cubes in a greased 13x9x2 baking dish. Top with the cream cheese and remaining bread. In large bowl, combine remaining ingredients, beating eggs first.  Ladle or spoon evenly over the top.  Cover and refrigerate overnight.

Remove from refrigerator 30 minutes before baking.  Cover and bake at 350 degrees for 30 minutes.  Uncover; bake 15-20 minutes longer or until knife inserted near center comes out clean.

Yield:  12 servings