Sena Causes LGBT Volunteer Expo

Sue Sena created a volunteer expo event for for LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations in New York City that took place on January 12. Sena, who is president of this non-profit organization that supports the gay community – SWiSH – created the event as her project in Landmark’s SELP program. Edge New York, a leading gay website, wrote a story about Sena and the event.

SWISH to host volunteer expo in lower Manhattan

by Michael K. Lavers

A self-described fag hag, SWiSH [Straight Women in Support of Homos] president and co-founder Sue Sena came to the realization there was a need for a kitschy pink organization to advocate for and support gays and lesbians after she attended New York’s annual LGBT pride parade in 2002 with a group of gay friends. Sena and her friends joked the parade needed a fag hag float, but the idea soon evolved into something more.

"I was really… impacted by the spirit and the energy and the pride about everyone being able to come together and to be out, loud and proud on this given day," she told EDGE in a recent interview. "I was really struck by that."

SWiSH incorporated into a non-profit in 2003. It has members in 34 states with an Atlanta chapter that formed in 2007. Sena said the group’s unique acronym carries added significance.

"We liked the energy and movement of the word swish and we wanted to take it back and make it a very positive thing," she said. "Swish for us represented this big, beautiful and high energy group of people and it was never derogatory to us."

Sena and her cohorts will bring their unique brand of activism to their first volunteer expo for LGBT and HIV/AIDS organizations at the Housing Works Bookstore Café on Crosby Street in Soho on Monday, Jan. 12. AIDS Walk New York, the Anti-Violence Project, God’s Love We Deliver, the Hetrick-Martin Institute and Will Clark’s Porno Bingo are among the organizations scheduled to participate. And Sena said she feels President-elect Barack Obama’s historic election and expanding support for LGBT rights have sparked increased interest in volunteering and even activism.

Read the rest of the story at Edge News.

 

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