Getting more involved

Once again, I have selected a theme for my blog that seems to apply to many different areas of my life.

First off, Little Rock Capital Pride-- I was recently tapped by our President, David W. Quinn, to head up recruiting our corporate sponsorships. Sponsorships are vital to the success of all Pride events and our board is committed to aggressively pursuing them to ensure the success of our event. I am proud to say that we already have 2 companies that have said that they would be glad to sponsor our event in addition to the 4 Circle of 100 sponsors we already had!!! If anyone knows of a potential sponsor, please send me their contact information and for more information check out http://www.littlerockcapitalpride.org/donatesponsor Also, LRCP has already begun reaping the benefits of our association with InterPride (international organization of Pride organizers). Our friends at InterPride (especially Trisha of Atlanta Pride committee and Radar of South Carolina Pride) have assisted us in preparing our sponsorship pamphlet, our sponsorship agreement and helped us to apply for a scholarship to attend the international conference in Portland, ME in October. I was in Atlanta this past week and got to have coffee with Trisha--- wow, what a wealth of Pride knowledge this lady has!! I can't wait to see her again and look forward to meeting our buddy, Radar, either in Portland or when he hosts the Prides of the SouthEast regional conference in February. LRCP is busy planning our first fund-raiser of the year—BOO BASH—on October 28th at Sidetracks in NLR. Kamrin, our fundraising director, has been hard at work planning a fabulous event. If you would like more information about the event or would like to help out, contact her at doddified@yahoo.com LRCP was recently highlighted by Out in America (check out http://www.outinlittlerock.com ) and was featured in this month's Star magazine (http://ozarksstar.com/pg-22.html ) We have published our first ever newsletter ( if you have joined our Yahoo group, you can view the file LRCP082306NL.pdf at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/LittleRockCapitalPride/files/ ) ; if you would like to feature your group, event, business or website that would be of interest to the GLBT community in LR, then send me a submission at joelafountaine@littlerockcapitalpride.org Our next meeting is tomorrow, September 9th from 3:00 to 4:30 at Central Arkansas Library's Main Branch at 100 Rock Street. We will be in the Fribourgh Room on the 2nd Floor. There are a lot of exciting developments in our Pride planning and many opportunities for you to get involved; so please join us.
Secondly, I have started to get involved with Arkansas AIDS Foundation. As an HIV+ person, I know what AIDS Service Organizations provide to their clients. Everything from health care referrals, HIV testing, assistance with nutrition, housing, social services and case management for dealing with the bureaucracies like Social Security, Medicare and insurance companies as well as support groups, workshops for responsible relationships, providing condoms---these groups are TRULY life-savers. I met with Joan Gauthreaux (fellow Cajun) today and I am very excited about working with her in the future. My plan is to volunteer at health fairs, do some education/prevention speaking, and eventually be trained to do pre- and post-test HIV counseling. I am very excited about a CDC- sponsored program for HIV+ gay white men called Healthy Relationships. The workshop is 5 2-hour sessions running Monday-Friday night 6-8pm (with a meal provided) that helps participants make better decisions on disclosures, risk reduction behaviors and stress reduction. The next workshop starts on Monday, but I plan to attend the next series beginning on October 2nd. There is also a program designed for all of you negative folks called Positive Outlook Leaders that will pay you to teach other gay men about HIV and how to protect themselves. If you would like more information for either program, email Joan at joang@araidsfoundation.org
And finally, I am really beginning to build a circle of friends here in Little Rock. My friends James and Brian and Michael and Eric have introduced me to a lot of interesting people and I am so glad to see how we are getting each other involved in different groups and meeting new people thus extending our circles.
I am SO glad to have all of these things going on in my life and really hope that more people continue to get involved in our community.
Peace and Love,
Joe