Hello McDaniel Community,
On behalf of Allies, I would like to thank all of you who made Allies Week great. It would not have been as fun without you! Thanks to your generosity, we were able to raise about $250 for the Trevor Project! Be proud of yourselves, McDaniel, you are saving young lives.
For those of you who don’t know, Allies Week is an annual project by the Allies club consisting of a week of events to raise awareness for non-heterosexual communities. A different population or subset of populations is highlighted every day. Every event is designed to educate the campus about different groups of sexual minority population, and also, we hope, to be fun!
In my personal favorite event, Stomp out Homophobia, we lined Red Square with bubble wrap and invited you to stomp on it. I hope you did – it’s impossible not to smile when those little bubbles pop under your feet! Whenever I staff that event, I love watching people’s tentative first steps onto the bubble wrap turn into wide smiles and firm stomps.
Another big event was a seminar by Claudia Astorino, an intersex advocate, who gave an informative, yet accessible and engaging, presentation on what intersex is, what it means to an individual’s identity, and how it is treated in society. Everyone should check out her blog, Full Frontal Advocacy. We would also like to thank Clara Burgess, who coordinated this event. We’re so grateful to her for allowing us to incorporate it into Allies Week!
Of course, our biggest event was our fabulous drag show! McDaniel’s First Time was definitely memorable! As one of the directors, I want to thank all of you who have given us such uplifting feedback on the show – it makes me so proud of what we accomplished. I want to thank Adrian Rowe and Daniel Carbo for their dedication to great performances and patience with us as we all learned together how to pull this off. As of right now, we are planning to hold another drag show in next year’s Allies week, so start getting excited! Remember, it’s never too early to start planning an act. We would love to have more student performers next time.
If you have any feedback about Allies Week, please let us know at mcdanielallies@gmail.com. We want to know what you loved, what you hated, and what you want to see in the future. It is our goal is for everyone to love Allies week as much as we do. Additionally, be sure to check out our Coldstone fundraiser from 6-8 PM on Monday, April 22. Support Allies, eat delicious ice cream – it’s a win-win! It’s only with the continued, generous support of all you wonderful people that Allies can sustain events like Allies Week.
Sincerely,
Emily K. Sanders
Allies Executive Board Member
