Renaissance Senior Living: Drop Off Your Toys for Tots!

Exact Sciences Commits $500,000 to Urban League Black Business Hub

Company to be a foundational tenant in new facility

MADISON, Wis. – Dec. 9, 2021 – Exact Sciences today announced the company is committing $500,000 to support construction of the Urban League of Greater Madison’s Black Business Hub (The Hub) on the city’s south side. Exact Sciences also plans to lease space in the building to connect with job seekers and community organizations, adding the company’s name to a growing roster of public and private sector tenants at The Hub.

“Few organizations are as consistent and persistent as the Urban League when it comes to improving lives and creating economic opportunity,” said Kevin Conroy, chairman and CEO of Exact Sciences. “The Hub will offer formal and informal programming, create new supply chain opportunities for area businesses, and give entrepreneurs a place to call home. We cannot wait to see it open.”

Scheduled to break ground in the coming weeks, The Hub fills an economic development void in the city by creating a place devoted to nurturing, accelerating, and supporting Black and other entrepreneurs of color. The 4-story, 76,000 square foot state-of-the-art center will include: retail and office spaces, co-working and meeting space, a rentable commercial kitchen, and business assistance and mentoring programs.

“The Hub ushers in a new era for Black and minority-owned business development in Madison,” said Dr. Ruben Anthony, Urban League of Greater Madison president and CEO. “It will be a vibrant cultural, business, and community site that invites people to come together to support new businesses and build greater understanding of the challenges and opportunities we all share.”

Equally important, The Hub will also transform opportunities for entrepreneurs by providing new funding sources via loans and grants underwritten by the Urban League of Greater Madison.

“When starting out, businesses need access to capital and help getting things off the ground,” said Anthony. “The Black Business Accelerator Program is a fund of over $1 million to provide grants and loans to help populations that are historically under-represented within Madison’s entrepreneurial ecosystem.”

Exact Sciences is a longtime collaborator and supporter of the Urban League. Since 2018, the organizations have jointly operated a job training program which provides participants with career coaching, skills training, and hands-on experience to prepare them for roles within Exact Sciences’ laboratory and customer care teams. To date, more than 120 people have graduated from the program, with more than 80% receiving job offers.

Last month, the Urban League announced that it had $3 million remaining to raise by the end of the year to ensure construction can begin on time, and up to $8 million to eliminate the need for any loans to construct The Hub. With the commitment from Exact Sciences, the Urban League now has less than $1.9 million remaining to meet its goal of being able to begin construction before the ground freezes.

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Contacts:

Scott Larrivee Exact Sciences 608-287-9261 slarrivee@exactsciences.com

Dr. Ruben L. Anthony, Jr. Urban League of Greater Madison 608-729-1208 ranthony@ulgm.org

About Exact Sciences Corp.
A leading provider of cancer screening and diagnostic tests, Exact Sciences relentlessly pursues smarter solutions providing the clarity to take life-changing action, earlier. Building on the success of the Cologuard^® and Oncotype^® tests, Exact Sciences is investing in its product pipeline to take on some of the deadliest cancers and improve patient care. Exact Sciences unites visionary collaborators to help advance the fight against cancer. For more information, please visit the company’s website at  www.exactsciences.com, follow Exact Sciences on Twitter @ExactSciences, or find Exact Sciences on Facebook.

About Urban League of Greater Madison
The Urban League of Greater Madison (ULGM) is part of a national movement dedicated to empowering Black and other under-served communities through programs & services, advocacy & civil rights, and community engagement activities. Our work is aimed at increasing opportunity and eliminating racial disparities in education, economic well-being, housing, and other quality of life factors.

Goodwill Recycles Christmas Lights

Media Alert

December 8, 2021

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jill Carlson
Communications Coordinator
Goodwill of South Central Wisconsin
jcarlson@goodwillscwi.org
Office phone: 608 246-3140 x 1120
Cell phone: 608 228-3047

Goodwill SCWI Recycles Christmas String Lights

It happens every year, those darn strings of Christmas lights won’t light! They worked when you put them away last year!!

Now what do you do with them? You can’t put them in your trash or recycle bin and community recycling centers are open limited hours or don’t accept lights at all.

Goodwill SCWI offers an easy way to recycle strings of Christmas lights – just take them to the donation center at any of the 13 Goodwill SCWI locations (goodwillscwi.org/locations). We take it from there to ensure the lights are recycled.

“Goodwill responsibly recycles the strings of lights and keeps them out of the landfill,” Jill Carlson Goodwill SCWI Communications Coordinator, said. “Plus, we recycle the lights year-round.”

Oh, and since you’re going to Goodwill, bring along any gently used items that you no longer need or want to donate to our retail store. That will free up space in your closet for all the Christmas gifts you’ll receive!

Proceeds from the sale of donated items in our stores support job skills training and gives people right here in our own community confidence and independence through the Power of Work.

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Summit Donates $2 Million to the Center for Black Excellence

Largest donation in credit union’s 86-year history

MADISON, WIS. — Summit Credit Union, Wisconsin’s second largest credit union, today announced a $2 million donation to launch The Center for Black Excellence and Culture in South Madison. It is the first company to contribute to the multi-million-dollar effort and the largest gift in the history of the credit union founded in 1935.

“This Black-led, Black-inspired and Black-designed center aims to create a space that uplifts the Black Community and Black-owned businesses, especially those run by women,” said Kim Sponem, CEO and President. “The time is now for all of us to join the Black community to transform Madison from one of the worst cities for Blacks to live in, to one of the best.”

Sponem said Summit Credit Union strongly supports the center’s unique blend of building Black wealth in its planned incubator and co-working spaces, and its art events and community services spaces.

Summit Credit Union has dedicated itself to the financial wellness of its members for 86 years and has been firmly focused on women’s financial empowerment for 12 years.

The Center is slated to open in 2023. For more information, visit the Center for Black Excellence and Culture.

Casetta After Dark

On Saturday nights at Casetta Kitchen, employees Seanna Whalen and Nick Larke transform the bustling, subway-tiled lunchtime sandwich spot into Lady Bird, their recurring pop-up dinner. These ephemeral candlelit parties offer a five-course prix fixe menu for $50, a reasonably priced and interesting selection of wines, and one of the most exciting dining experiences in Madison.

The Lady Bird concept was born in Chicago, where Whalen and Larke were laid off from their restaurant jobs at the start of the pandemic. Looking for a sense of community in the isolation of lockdown, they hosted dinner parties in their apartment building’s backyard. After the city’s lockdown ended, they both worked to open Rose Mary restaurant in the West Loop, but still longed for the sense of connection that their backyard dinners provided.

In July 2021, they sat in the same backyard and wondered, in Whalen’s words, “Why are we working so hard for someone else when we used to do these dinners that brought us so much joy?” Like many in the restaurant industry during the pandemic, they were asking themselves what mattered most. Larke said he wanted time to be creative and Whalen realized she wanted “community.”

Read more at Isthmus