“We kind of have a running joke here that we’re the best-kept secret on the east side. It’s cute but it makes fundraising and marketing kind of hard,” says Tom Moen, executive director of the East Madison Community Center. “So, our goal at the end of this year was not to be the best-kept secret on the east side.”

The East Madison Community Center (EMCC) has been achieving that goal as of late getting some great local media coverage for their 50th-anniversary celebration that will be held this weekend at their headquarters on 8 Straubel Court on Madison’s east side. All of the attention is appropriate for a center that has been flying under most people’s radars for the last half-century but has been a vital part of so many Madisonians lives.

Tucked in the middle of a housing project behind East Washington Ave. and North Stoughton Road and close to Madison College, EMCC is a little bit off the beaten path. You can’t really see it from the street. You have to find it. But for 50 years, the center has been a neighborhood focal point, serving children and families from the surrounding area, collaborating to help community residents achieve their goals and gain skills. For 50 years, EMCC has been strengthening the community through education, employment, fitness and socialization.

East Madison Community Center, 8 Straubel Court
East Madison Community Center, 8 Straubel Court

John Harmelink, youth program manager at the East Madison Community Center, has been with EMCC for a long time, 25 years — half of the organization’s existence.

“A lot of places like this don’t make it nearly this long. It feels really good. It feels like yesterday when I started because this has been more of a passion than it is just a job,” Harmelink tells Madison365. “It’s something that you believe in: making a positive impact on the community.”

EMCC’s focus has always been on the children, but the structured programs and the community vibe is definitely geared toward the whole family. EMCC has family fun nights, senior programs, afterschool and Saturday drop-in, a learning center, girls and boys development groups, a garden club, summer day camp, food pantry/household Items/clothing, a neighborhood resource center, a community garden program, parenting classes, multicultural art classes, a computer lab, and much, much more. It’s a full-service community center that Harmelink describes as “everything but a bed.”

“We’re also open til 8 or 9 at night for 6 days a week when most community centers would be closed,” Harmelink says.

Children love to read at the East Madison Community Center.
Children love to read at the East Madison Community Center.

EMCC has achieved some amazing results as they’ve turned their focus more on education, tutoring, and social skills over the years and not as much on just providing a place for kids to hang out.

“Seeing the growth over the years has been tremendous – from a 50 percent graduation rate from our kids to over 90 percent right now,” Harmelink says. “We have grown into a full-service center with education, prevention, recreation, and social skills.”

The center was formed in the summer of 1966 and housed in two apartments on nearby Wright Street as part of a community effort to steer children away from violence and to help expand activities for area youth and adults. The organization moved into its current space at 8 Straubel Court in 1981 and has expanded three times since then including the addition of a gym and multi-purpose room 8 years ago.

Garden club at the East Madison Community Center
Garden club at the East Madison Community Center

“When I started back in ’74, we were two apartments over. Back then, if a kid graduated from high school we got out the Crêpe paper and balloons and celebrated – it was kind of a big deal,” Moen smiles. “Now, we have kids graduating from high school and they get a scholarship to go to college and graduate. Over the past three years, three of the kids who graduated have stayed involved in the center and were elected to our board of directors … now they’re my boss.

“Glad I was nice to them on the way up … I hope they remember that,” Moen adds, laughing. “I keep reminding them.”

Moen has been with EMCC for so long that he has seen the children of the children he has helped at the center. And their grandchildren, too. EMCC is a true community center that empowers the people of the community and, most importantly, gets results. That’s what Moen loves. “We’ve got something figured out here. We hire people here and they won’t go away,” Moen says. “We’ve had staff that has been here a very long time. That’s a good thing. You don’t find that in this business that often.”

“We have an amazing staff … very low turnover. We probably have over 90 years of experience,” Harmelink adds. “The young kids that grew up here that are now working here … I’m very proud of them. It’s cool to see the kids that are buying into the system and the success and turning into young adults who are positive role models for the younger kids. We can’t do it ourselves … the best role models are the kids that come through the program.”

Neighborhood kids relax at the East Madison Community Center on Thursday, Aug. 18.
Neighborhood kids relax at the East Madison Community Center on Thursday, Aug. 18.

Most of the kids come from Madison’s east side and within a proximity of about 2 miles of the center.

“What helps is that we have Madison teachers who work here. We have social workers, interns, community,” Harmelink says. “That’s another thing we’ve seen within the last 25 years is the community taking a more active role in the center and volunteering and helping out.

“We’re also seeing less things like gang activity and violence and suspensions and expulsions from school than we did back in the day,” Harmelink adds. “When you’re measuring programs for success, we are seeing less police calls and we no longer need a neighborhood police officer. We’re seeing the neighborhood take a more active role in everything. That’s empowering people to let them know that this is THEIR neighborhood center, not mine. It’s the community’s. That’s a big thing. When you feel that the empowerment is yours, you take a little more pride in making sure that the community center is running well and that you have positive outcomes all the time.”

The EMCC 50th anniversary party this Saturday will have food, music, games, bounce houses, dunk tanks, fire trucks, mascots, face painting, break dancers, Hmong dancers, Hip-Hop bands, and the Rimrockers.

“Just a lot of fun for the kids and families,” Moen says. “I know a lot of people from the past are coming back including original kids and early staff people. It will be nice to see everybody.”

“It will just be a tremendous celebration for the community, for everybody who has been involved in the community center for the past 50 years,” adds Harmelink. “From the people who started it to the neighborhood association to volunteers, interns, community members. We will be having some fun, but we will also be looking at the accomplishments that have gone on in the neighborhood itself.”

As EMCC continues to grow in response to what is most important to families on the east side of Madison, it remains one of the city’s most important institutions.

“There are three areas that help to raise a child – family, community, and schools/education,” Harmelink says. “If one of them falls down a little bit, then the other ones have to pick up the slack. Sometimes it’s important to just have a caring adult with a safe, structured place to go. That’s what we have here at the East Madison Community Center.”

“I’m most proud of how well these kids are doing here. These kids are so self-confident and so full of hope and so respectful and so polite and so non-judgmental. They all volunteer at the Center,” Moen adds. “It’s given me such a great joy to be a part of it for all these years.”