Oh how I wish we had some place like this is Chicago! The Wil-Mar community center and the folks…read morewho attend the classes there are so warm and welcoming! I am a healthcare traveler in Madison for an assignment, for 3 months, so I went to an event here last week to try and meet folks. The Thursday night Ecstatic Dance gathering, from 7:30-9:00 PM was exactly what I was looking for and it was wonderful! There were about 40 of us dancing in this beautiful open space with a lovely clean wooden floor, awesome sound system, STAGE, and clean spacious bathrooms. It was only a suggested donation of $5 per person to attend and parking across the street was FREE! I will definitely come back every Thursday while I am working in Madison and I highly recommend this weekly event! Just bring a water bottle and $5 and a desire to dance and get to know folks in this beautiful community. Thank you, Wil-Mar, for offering this event!

When planning a surprise birthday party with more than 100 guest, finding a local, flexible and…read moreaffordable location in Madison can be hard. I stopped looking when I found the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center. The center is an old church, the former sanctuary is the main room. It has a stage, small but very functional kitchen, lots of open space with wood floors, windows and a wide variety of lighting options. There is a projection screen on the back wall of the stage. Other amenities include low and high tables, chairs, coolers, table cloths and a very nice PA system that was super-easy to use. If you hire a DJ, he/she can simply plug into their system, no hauling amps and speakers! There are two other rooms on the main floor, mostly meeting rooms with living-room type furniture. There is a lift to all floors making the building accessible. There is parking across the street, and street parking as well. This is handy, as the center is located in a mostly residential neighborhood The staff I worked with were friendly, accommodating and easy to work with. A few days before the event I put down my key deposit and was given, basically, keys to the whole place. THAT was handy! But one of the very best things is the center allows party planners to bring in outside food with no extra fees or charges. This makes the Wil-Mar Neighborhood Center a very affordable option to have a party or event. A few things that would make this 5-star: - a built-in projector - 25 more chairs - reminder photos or floor plans of how the furniture should be put back at the end

Gilda's Club reaches out to children and adults with a cancer diagnosis (and their families) to…read moreoffer free emotional support, cancer education, and hope. This organization has a big heart and changes lives.

Excellent space for community groups to meet; at least twice the size of their former location…read moredowntown. So many resources available, and I can't wait to see what plans they have for the new location!

From the owner: Our mission is to promote equality and quality of life for LGBT people.read more

The apartments used to be an attractive option for graduate students due to proximity to campus and…read morelow rents. Unfortunately, rents at Eagle Heights have been increasing much faster than elsewhere in Madison, so now the cost is almost the same, and thats not even considering somewhat Spartan amenities in Eagle Heights (no AC, old refrigerators, tiny apartments). The bedrooms are good for one queen bed and that's about it. There is a space for AC, but good luck trying to cool 2-bedroom apartments with one window AC unit. The endless fire alarm tests (and false fire alarms) don't help either. It's not clear what niche these apartments occupy now as they are sub-par quality for regular price (after all the rent increases).

This is the commons area, party room, entertainment center for graduate student housing in the…read moreEagle Heights complex. It's available for private events, I was here for Sri Lankan New Years and it was a suitable venue. The kitchen is serviceable for a pretty large party, there's a good indoor outdoor combination, with a little playground area for children to safely play when they get bored with the grown up stuff going on inside. The main weakness is that there isn't adequate parking for a lot of guests coming from outside of the complex, I guess since this is Madison the expectation is that everyone can walk or bicycle in.

This is for the senior center: If you are Asian and you are used to or are ok with micro…read moreaggressions, then this center will be fine, they will let you coexist there with a smile, but there is a racial hierarchy here that is obvious with certain staff. Techniques like gaslighting, twisting the narrative to make the reporting person out to be the crazy or difficult one and then ganging up on that one person is not just breeding covert racism, it's abusive, dehumanizing and bullying and this is what happened at the Fitchburg senior center with Amanda/Mandy, the blonde volunteer coordinator. She went from being really nice one day to stone cold the next, it's like she'll snap if you don't conform to what she expects of you and drops all sense of humanity, it was full on mean girl. The front desk person Suzie, is apparently allowed to talk down to certain people regardless if it causes people to feel dehumanized. It's what I felt from her, and Mandy, as a white person who hasn't dealt with the type of micro aggressions that we have, to gaslight me, tell me that I need to understand that suzie is a Black woman and "everyone has their sh!t" (her exact words) and then tell me that she overheard me saying that this was the senior center with the worst communication, with a look that said "I caught you", insinuating that I was an unhinged client is insane. I fully DID say that BECAUSE of the way I was talked down to (only after, NOT before the microaggression) and that was also after I waited quite patiently to get a hold of someone to reserve a meal for my mom for three days. But I suppose that compassion i'm supposed to have for Suzie because "everyone has their sh!t" doesn't apply to me or my mom, because people who are having bad days can take it out on us and we should take it and if we don't , like good little accommodating asians, then we get ganged up on and blamed. She told me as if I were a child, "we're done talking". I told her that she didn't understand because she had privilege and she laughed in my face not understanding I was referring to her, and said sarcastically, "a black women has privilege?!", twisting my words and somehow making me a criticizer of the black experience. I was working in Compton fighting for Black rights. Suzie is at a predominantly white senior center talking down to Asians in a way she would never speak to Mandy or a white man. So I think it's ridiculous for Mandy to make assumptions of both of us based on our race. so to make me out to be the unhinged crazy person saying things I'm not saying is oppression at its finest, and as a woman Mandy should know this. the abuser's motto: "let's discredit her". My fight for my own rights is not a competition with other poc, Two people can experience racism, not just one group, and there can also be interracial racism, I have been called racial slurs by both black and white, so to insinuate it's impossible for her to be micro aggressive with me BECAUSE she's black, just reinforces that my mom and i, as Asians don't have a voice or a right to our feelings or our experience, complete dehumanization. EVERYONE should be treated with dignity, Suzie included, but no one should talk down to others because they think they can, Suzie included. I was in the blood drive room with a bunch of white people staring at me while Mandy acted as if I was out of control and they all just stared and as I walked out, (let's be clear I was pushed out, not physically but through power in numbers), even one of the women I knew didn't care enough to see if I was ok, they just stayed there with Mandy, further isolating me, with their blank uncaring stares watching as I walked out feeling horrible. I knew she would spin her narrative and of course since she had suzie's back and Suzie has her back, and everyone knows her and we're new, and she gets to say her side, and talk to all of them while I walked out alone, that's as much of a ganging up situation as I can imagine at a SENIOR CENTER. It's like high school. Toxic, clicky, peer pressure, power in numbers. Where is the humanity in this sick place? and to make matters worse mandy said she knew more about racism as anyone, as she stood there not even understanding how her white savior complex for a Black woman was actually promoting racism for an Asian woman, but again we Asians don't count here, a disgusting example of oppression and people will continue to turn a blind eye, throw up their hands and allow it because it doesn't affect them or it can't be "proven". And when more than one person gangs up on one, well they discount that one. So that was our trauma. We got discounted like we were nobodies. If you go here, people will be smiling their ignorance is bliss smiles and all will look just fine, but if you're a certain shade, you're expected to act accordingly. Even one communication reporting mistreatment, and you're bullied til you leave. They love us as long as we're smiling. Covert Racism 101.

This is a hiddem gem in the Madison area. It's a bit off the beaten path in Verona but worth the…read moretrip. Zero depth entry, salt water, solar heated pool. It doesn't get any better than this. I wear contacts and usually I take them out because my eyes become irritated from the chlorine. Not here though! I can keep my eyes open (without googles) and there are no issues. They take a break for 15 minutes on the hour for 18 and over swim. Otherwise, kids reign free in the pool for 45 minutes. There's a shallow end with some kid features and a deep end. Kids will need to pass a test from the lifeguards in order to swim on their own in the deep end (it's marked off). When you're taking a break, enjoy a freezie pop for 25 cents or a choco taco from the concessions area. If you're looking to cool off on a hot summer day, look no further!

Summer fun. Jennifer Gray move over! This pool was like an…read moreOasis on a hot day. All the other local pools were closing for the summer and they were still open through labor day. Still close to Madison and surrounding areas, it is open to the public and a short drive. Decent changing rooms, large parking lot and then we get to the actual pool. Nice layout of the adult pool connecting with the kids pool. Tons of lounging chairs, picnic tables at actual pool area. Large deep end area and lap pool permanently roped off. Pool was extremely clean, tidy and staff was great. This felt a little old fashioned, in a fun way. Surrounded my big mature trees, rolling hills of Verona, it was a breath of fresh air! The picnic and playground area just north of the pool has a huge wooden playground set in the shape of an ark. There's Zebras, Lions and giraffes in pairs to accompany the ark. Who doesn't love a zebra to climb on? Huge field to play in and more picnic tables. FUN! We will be there next summer, two by two!