Shelby and the Rainbow Road, Day 4

There is something about this trip that completely exceeds my expectations on everything. I'm trying to view that as a sign of my future growth. For example, I had no idea that the church we are staying at would play such a large role in our trip.

As we cleaned up breakfast and mentally began to prepare for our second day of volunteering, we ran into June, the Trans Coordinator there at All God's Children. She found out that we would be doing work with the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition. Being a transgendered woman herself, she offered to answer any questions we may have. What started as a simple question and answer period quickly developed into June spilling her life story. She had a fascinating life perspective and offered us much insight into one woman's experience with the man to woman change. It was really cool that she was willing to teach us so much, and I never expected to gain so much knowledge just from the place I happened to be staying at.

Our first volunteering project of the day was working with the Minnesota Transgender Health Coalition to make safer usage kits and condom kits. Billy from Rainbow Health Initiative met us there to be a supervisor of sorts over the assembly line we formed. The condom kits were first. We attacked our individual duties with zeal and were done soon, moving on to the safer usage kits. One of these kits was for safer usage of smoking crack, and the other was safer usage for injecting heroin. Some in our group were a little uncomfortable with making the kits, and understandably so. It did seem a little strange to be making things to help those who are addicted to drugs, but the intentions really are good. It's unrealistic to believe that you can stop everyone from abusing substances, but eliminating risk of exposure to diseases and infection really does make a difference. It's an interesting way to approach the problem, and I believe it was a new experience for everyone on our trip.

Our second bout of volunteering for the day was done for the Minnesota AIDS Project with Pride Alive. Pride Alive is an organization that works to improve the health of gay and bisexual men. The event we were working was making more condoms with local gay men. It had developed into a social event for Pride Alive, with pizza and soft drinks available, comfy couches to lounge on while creating the kits, and a large tv for our viewing pleasure. Had Glee been back on yet, we were told it would have surely been the show of choice. These condom kits were a bit more graphic and attention-getting, but at this point we were already considering ourselves condom-kit pros.

It was really fun to talk to all the men there. A few of them were affiliated with Delta Lambda Phi, a nationally known fraternity founded by gay men for all men. Some of the DLP men had recently visited the University of Kansas for a conference. Small world! It took me a little bit to try to talk to them; they were really engaged in their conversations that I kept listening in on. As soon as I broke into their circle, they were very charming and fun. We hugged goodbye. :)

We got back to the church right as a fundraising banquet for the Equality Riders from Soulforce was ending. Soulforce is an organization that is dedicated to relentless nonviolent resistance to achieve equality for LGBTQ people. They were almost getting ready to leave, but we had time to talk to a few and help them write affirming messages in easter eggs for the students at North Central University.

Very full and fun day!