The Urban League of Greater Madison’s annual summer Unity Picnic usually takes place around this time in late July. In its five years of existence, the Unity Picnic has established itself as a fun, community-building event with food, music, dancing, bounce houses, dunk tanks, face painting, and more.
The annual party, due to the coronavirus pandemic, is going to be a bit different this year. It will be held Saturday, Aug. 29, 1-4 p.m. in the large parking lot behind the Urban League of Greater Madison on Madison’s south side.
“Unfortunately, because of the COVID-19 pandemic, we won’t be doing our usual Unity Picnic, but we will be doing a Drive-Thru Unity Picnic that will be focused on two things: voter education and making sure that everybody is accounted for in the 2020 census,” Dr. Ruben Anthony, president and CEO of the Urban League of Greater Madison, tells Madison365.
“The big push is going to be to get people registered for their absentee ballots and be able to vote by mail. We’ll be working with [Dane County Clerk] Scott McDonnell and other members and groups of the community to help with us,” Anthony says.
At the end of the day, they still wanted to host the picnic in the parking lot in front of the Urban League like they do every summer. Just no large congregations.
“We’ll have people drive through and get the information about voting and they will be able to pick up a picnic box full of delicious food,” Anthony says. “All they have to do is roll down their window and tell them what kind of food they want and everything will be pre-packaged and ready to go.”
Delicious food, high-quality barbeque, will be provided by Darren Price from BP Smoke and Kipp’s Cuisine.
“We want to be very safe. So we’ll take temperatures of anybody involved with handing out information or handing out food,” Anthony says. “We’ll have our masks on and gloves on.”
It’s part of a whole weekend that the Urban League of Greater Madison is calling “Souls to the Polls.”
“Saturday we’ll be kicking it off with our Drive-Thru Picnic and then on that Sunday, we’ll be asking all the different faiths – Christian, Muslim, Jews… to be encouraging their congregations and members to make sure that they go online and register to vote,” Anthony says. “We’ll be looking to do some online activity to really pound home the focus to get people to register to vote.
“We will be focused on making sure people get counted in the 2020 Census,” he adds. “That will be very important, too.”
Voter registration and the 2020 Census are just two of the things the Urban League has been preoccupied with during the pandemic.
“Everything is going well at the Urban League despite the pandemic. We’re still doing our COVID-19 workforce recovery initiative. We have about 95 business now that we’re directing people towards,” Anthony says.
You don’t have to register ahead of time for the Urban League Drive-Thru Picnic. Even if you are already registered to vote, you can still drive through and pick up some food.
“Some of the folks don’t have cars on the south side so we are working out an option for people to walk up or bicycle up to get food and to get registered,” Anthony says. “We will accommodate those people. We just don’t want people to congregate too much during the COVID pandemic, so we can’t have lines. But we want to make sure everybody gets what they need.”
It will be a different feel this year, but it will still be the Urban League Unity Picnic.
“We’re trying to have as many things from the usual Urban League Unity Picnic that we normally have. Right now, we’re still debating about having a little music,” Anthony says. “We would like to, but we also don’t want people to congregate too much. So we’re exploring our options on that.
“But it will be an important event this year with the voter registration and 2020 Census and the whole weekend of #SoultothePolls,” he adds.
The Drive-Thru Unity Picnic will take place Saturday, Aug. 29, 1-4 p.m. at the Urban League of Greater Madison. For more information, click here.
