United Way of Dane County

Hundreds of worthy charitable organizations help people in the Madison area with specific missions such as clean lakes, adult literacy, the arts and more.

So why give to the bigger, broader, century-old United Way of Dane County?

Larry Barton, who is leading this year’s fundraising campaign, offers a compelling reason — and life story — to encourage donations and volunteering.

Barton, CEO of Strang Inc., a Madison-based architecture, engineering, interior design and planning firm, was 7 years old when his father’s alcoholism broke up his family. He and his brother spent the next five years in deep poverty, bouncing from apartment to apartment with their father.

Sometimes Barton went to school, sometimes not. He was “hungry probably more often than not,” he told the State Journal editorial board recently.

At rock bottom, his father was living out of a car with Barton and his brother. Sometimes the boys slept in a park. When neighbors called police, Barton was taken to a juvenile facility for three months while his father sought treatment.

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