Five Milwaukee LGBT Organizations Team-up with PrideFest
By: Gary Hollander - Posted on: 6/24/2008

The AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, BEST-D Clinic, the Cream City Foundation, Diverse and Resilient and the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center joined PrideFest Milwaukee this June 7 and 8 at Milwaukee’s Henry Meier Festival Park to produce the first Exercising Pride, PrideFest Health and Wellness. These major sponsors also enjoyed financial support from the Wisconsin Department of Health and Family Services.

Over two dozen organizations sponsored booths at the two-day event; many others also hosted brief topics of interest at the Wellness Stage, where pedometers or iPod Shuffles were given away every hour to those attending. Festival participants also received bottled water (over 3,000 bottles distributed in 5 hours!) and – if they visited at least 10 booths in the area – either a backpack (1,000 distributed) or t-shirt (500 distributed). All those registering in the area were given a chance to win one of two free Trek bicycles.

Although a tornado watch late Saturday afternoon and severe thunderstorms mid-day on Sunday washed out nearly half the event, festival goers still rated it a favorite at Pride. Thousands visited booths that featured such engaging activities as double-dutch, hopscotch, miniature golf, recorded interviews, quilting, and condom buffets, all intended to make the important content of the organizations more accessible.

Diverse and Resilient and the Milwaukee LGBT Community Center also launched rm2breathe, Wisconsin’s LGBT smoking cessation program funded by the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health’s Wisconsin Partnership Program. The launch included a survey of community attitudes about tobacco use and free breath mints. To learn more about this exciting program, go to http://www.rm2breathe.org.

Connexus, Milwaukee’s African American LGBT social and educational group hosted its second PrideFest booth in the wellness area, featuring photos and brief discussions about favorite events of the past year, double-dutch and hopscotch. Connexus is a program of Diverse and Resilient.

Participating organizations included: ARCW, BEST-D Clinic, City of Milwaukee Health Dept (Milwaukee Breast and Cervical Cancer Awareness Program), CORE/El Centro, Cream City Foundation, Diverse and Resilient, FORGE, GAMMA, Health Institute of Milwaukee, La Casa d’Esperanza, Latinos En Accion, Lesbian Alliance, Milwaukee Gay Arts Center, Milwaukee LGBT Community Center, PFLAG Milwaukee, SAGE Milwaukee, Shoreline-Milwaukee, Sixteenth Street Health Clinic, The Queer Program, (WAVE) WI Anti-Violence Effort Education Fund, WI Cream City Chorus, and Women’s Voices Milwaukee. They were also joined by Acupuncture Associates, American Laser Clinic, Aurora Medical Group, Culligan, and GLOW Salon and Spa.