Feb 9th, 2007
What about COLAGE at Family Week 2007?
This week R Family Vacations and Family Pride Coalition announced a new business partnership. (See press release via Yahoo Finance News.)
Note this statement from the release:
In its 12th year, family week 2007 will be held from July 28th - August 4th, 2007, and anticipates over 500 gay and lesbian families in attendance. R Family Vacations will bring their expertise in Gay and Lesbian family entertainment by creating family themed events…Family Pride Coalition will continue to offer all of the workshops and educational content during Family Week.
All of the workshops and educational content?
Where did COLAGE go in this equation?
COLAGE programming is a huge part of why families return to Provincetown year after year, and parents keep bringing more kids. Last year COLAGE provided activities and workshops for 240 youth, grades 3 - 12. The team that provides this programming are all adult queerspawn and — with the exception of a handful of paid staff — are all unpaid, and in fact, paying their own way to get to P-town, arrange vacation days from their jobs, etc.
In 2006, COLAGE brought 32 volunteer staffers who worked nearly around the clock tending to the safety and well-being of all those kids. I did it for three years, when there were only 80 kids, and believe me, working at Family Week is a joy, but it is no vacation and a significant out-of-pocket financial commitment.
So how can COLAGE’s programming — a huge draw for families to Family Week — be ignored?
A spokesperson from FPC replied to my query via email saying “This has been coming for a while and of course COLAGE has been fully aware of the process and the announcement - they will be doing their own programming during Family Week.”
I’m not privy to what that means exactly, but still: not even a nod to COLAGE’s existence in the description about what makes Family Week so awesome?
I did not receive a reply to the email I sent to R Family asking the same question.
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Full disclosure: I was on COLAGE volunteer staff at Family Week in 1999, 2000 and 2001, and I was a guest presenter on R Family cruises in 2004 and 2005.