A business feature story on the local pickleball boom seemed like an appropriate piece to run at the height of summer, when the joy of playing outside is palpable for kids and adults.
But I wasn’t expecting to have our cover story on pickleball offer a broader lesson about inclusion and community — two themes that echo through multiple stories this month.
First, the picklers. Freelance writer Allison Garfield, our lead designer Jess Carter and two local photographers we frequently work with, Sharon Vanorny and Patricio Crooker, spent hours traipsing around to local parks to capture, in words and images, the pickleball craze.
It’s a great read with excellent photos (thanks team!) and through interviews with players, the story also reveals how important the community aspect of the game is. Pickleball has a low barrier to entry. It doesn’t require a lot of expensive equipment. And people of all ages and abilities can play together.
“As long as people keep the true purpose of pickleball in mind — kindness, inclusion and fun — it’s just going to keep growing,” said Erin Schettler, one of the players interviewed.
No wonder the pickleball business is booming.
Inclusion is also a central theme in this month’s executive profile on Kimberly Nonn, who works to match individuals with disabilities with employment and independent living. Nonn’s company, Feist Vocational Counseling & Placement, serves more than 550 clients in the Madison area.
Brittney Kenaston wrote the Nonn piece, and also profiled Sun Prairie business Mental Threads this month. The small craft business donates a large portion of its revenue to a mental health advocacy group that works with young people.
And we also feature WorldWise Microfinance this month, a local organization that supports the global community through microlending. Kenaston interviewed one of the group’s partners, Barbara Mutabazi of Ugandan nonprofit Nsimbi Impact, which helps women who want to start their own businesses.
Working toward inclusion in our coverage is also a goal for this magazine, as our editorial staff continues to broaden who we feature in Greater Madison’s business community. As contributor Sagashus Levingston correctly points out in her Leadership Insight column on pg. 40, we haven’t always been good at that.
As Levingston writes, if this magazine “is a mirror of who’s thriving in Madison, then the reflection should be shifting too. … Because the business landscape is changing. And the mirror will tell us whether we’ve widened the frame — or stayed frozen in place.”
Finally, big shifts are happening in the area of AI, a major focus of the University of Wisconsin-Madison these days, as senior writer Joe Vanden Plas reports. Vanden Plas also delves into the disappearance of the locally made Yodelay Yogurt from store shelves.
Thanks for reading, and happy summer!
