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GIVERS AND BAKERS
I’m now officially a charity slut. In the next six months I’m going to do the Food and Wine Fair for the Aids Trust, sell daffodils for the Cancer Council and finger some teenagers for World Youth Day – “It’s the time of your eternal life” and my scout’s shirt will be heavy with badges.
I don’t know why I get so involved in our community. It seems to be something I can’t avoid. I was brought up in a Christian family. My mother met my father on the mission field in Indonesia so maybe the compassion my mother possessed as a registered nurse and the care my father showed for a parish has been in my blood since conception. A lot of people involved in our community have come from religious backgrounds. After you’ve been involved in a tight-knit group like the church, you understand how powerful a ‘prayer circle’ of determined individuals can be. Every minute free is used to honour God and witness his love to the lost and lonely (that’s us). I hope I’ll always want to help our community but this week I’m just tired of being one of the givers, drowning in a sea of takers.
When I first came to Sydney I was told tidbits of information. There was the ‘Gay Mafia’. Now I’m not sure how that works. They must gag you and chuck you in the boot of the car, take you to the salon for a makeover then give you a pair of matching cement shoes and handbag and send you off in style. I’d also been told about the ‘Committee Lesbians’ that spend their lives serving on committees. The insinuation was that it was done for their own gratification but I’ve since realised they do it because no one else does. I think our community is divided into those that support and those that don’t, those that give a shit and those that don’t. It’s the same people that donate every time.
I’m now a committee lesbian and I’m part of a small group that charity hops. The same faces pop up at ACON, DIVAs, Aurora, NMG etc and when you ask for money it’s the same faces that turn away. Charity work can be a fantastic experience but when you work so hard to support the community and get no response it is disheartening. I understand that everybody is feeling the pinch but we can all do more. We thought Bake Off may be difficult but with a record number of entries, incredible support from the sponsors (I love AllGayCruises – thank you, thank you, thank you!) and the Shift packed to the rafters, it was disappointing to see our target of 60K fall well short. Take a long, hard look at yourselves and ask if you could do more. The answer will always be yes but it’s just a matter of what you do about it.
Mitzi Macintosh
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