The Annual Unity Picnic, a free and family-friendly community event with food, music, activities for kids and adults, and more, is moving west this year. Saturday’s event, normally held in the parking lot behind the Urban League of Greater Madison on Park Street, will be held at the Urban League Southwest Madison Employment Center, across the street from Elver Park on Madison’s west side.
“The reason we’re moving it is because we’re building the Black Business Hub and we didn’t feel like it’d be enough parking,” Dr. Ruben Anthony, CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, tells Madison365. “We thought that it would be best to take the Unity Picnic over to the Southwest Employment Center.
“We thought it would also be an opportunity to give some exposure to that side of town, but also give exposure to the Elver Park Neighborhood Center,” he adds. “The community over there doesn’t have the connectedness that south Madison does, so as much as we can do to help uplift that community and help bring unity in that area, that would be a great thing.”
The Urban League of Greater Madison is building a $25.5 million, four-story Black Business Hub in South Madison that has plans to become the Madison region’s premiere enterprise center devoted to incubating, accelerating, and networking diverse businesses and entrepreneurs. It will be home to retail and other businesses owned by Black and other entrepreneurs of color ranging from start-ups to established businesses looking to expand and/or take on storefront locations for the first time.
The official groundbreaking for the Black Business Hub was held back in April.
“We had the big groundbreaking event where we had 400 people come out on a very cold day in April from the governor to lieutenant governor to the mayor to the county executive, and even candidates that were running for Senate,” Anthony remembers. “it was cold that day, but the turnout really showed us that this is what the community asked for.
“We’re really excited about it. It is going to be an economic engine that will continue to be important for so many people for generations to come. I feel really good about what the Hub will bring,” he adds.
(Photo by David Dahmer)
With Black Business Hub construction going on by the Urban League, Saturday’s 8th Annual Unity Picnic moves to the Southwest Employment Center, Madison’s first neighborhood-based employment center made possible through a unique partnership between the City of Madison, the Urban League, and others.
The party will feature a wide variety of local talents like Kinfolk and DJ Ace and a variety of culinary offerings as well as resources and activities to educate, entertain, and captivate both kids and adults. The Picnic’s goal is to “provide a safe, fun, and family-friendly environment that fosters a sense of inclusion, collaboration, and connectedness with all community members to engage, share, and bond with one another, cultivating mutual understandings and building bridges of unity.”
Various organizations and businesses will be present including The City of Madison, One City Schools, Madison Children’s Museum, Madison Public Library, Madison School & Community Recreation, Madison Bay Drill Team, Wisconsin Youth Company, KinFolk Soul Music Madison, Warm Glow Studios, BP Smokehouse, Kipp’s Catering, and more.
“We’ll have an assortment of foods there. We’ll have face painting for the kids. We’ll also have jump ropes and just a whole segment for kids,” Anthony says. “We will have several groups who will have tables there with supportive services. We’ll have a band there. The Madison police are going to be cooking hot dogs.”
(Photo by Hedi Rudd)
Anthony says he hopes to see a good-sized crowd out for the Picnic on Saturday.
“We’ve all been locked down from COVID for so long and then we’ve got like a lot of stressors right now — we see massive inflation and high gas prices and everybody’s stressed out. So this is a chance to come and relax, let your hair down a little bit and just get to network and listen to music, have a sandwich or a hot dog, and be with friends,” Anthony says.
“I think it’s gonna be good. It’s the first time we haven’t had it on Park Street so I don’t know what to expect, to be quite honest,” he adds. “But I know by the way that is structured, it should be just a fun Saturday afternoon.”
The 8th Annual Urban League of Greater Madison Unity Picnic will be held Saturday, July 16, noon-5 p.m., at the Southwest Madison Employment Center, 1233 McKenna Blvd. on Madison’s west side.
