Transgender Emergency Fund: A model of how a small community can help itself.
The Transgender Emergency Fund is a great idea started by two social entrepreneurs, Tanya and Jesse. It started out as a small initiative really but has truly expanded over the past two years having raised thousands of dollars through small donations mainly from the transgender community. That money then went right back into the transgender community in Massachusetts in small grants to help low income trans-persons. The money is most often used for medical care, to avoid becoming homeless, and help with food and heating. This kind of communities helping themselves is really neat to see and a great example really of what can be accomplished when an entrepreneurial spirit is put with a desire to see social justice action put in place.
They are holding a kick off fund raiser at Club Cafe on Thursday, June 3rd at 6PM and the kick off includes their new calendar! Calendars are $10 each and feature the photos of many of Massachusetts leading trans-persons. Pretty fun stuff! You can get more information by dropping some mail to Jesse at jessep@aidsprojectworcester.org
May 14, 2010 Correction: Tanya emailed us here at Beck’s Cafe to let us know that while Tanya is a volunteer for the fund she did not start it. Jesse was the visionary who created it.
