For those of you who know me, you know that I’m pretty passionate about LGBT Rights and have been a community organizer and a vocal activist in the Northampton community since the mid 1990’s. I started with the now defunct Northampton Area Lesbian & Gay Business Guild in 1995, and then helped with the Northampton Pride Inc. organization for 11 years, until 2009. For the past 4 years until the end of 2013 I worked with the LGBT Coalition of Western MA assisting with events and joining their board of Directors.
Now, as a re-energized supporter and activist, I’m on a new gig to secure funding for the City of Northampton to install a rainbow crosswalk in downtown Northampton in front of Thorne’s Marketplace. The project has been met with surprisingly NO opposition, red tape, or criticism. In fact, all of the parties, from Terry Culhane, chair of the board of Public Works, the city engineer, Jim Laurila, Mayor David Narkowitz, and the Northampton Parking Commission have been more than supportive and even seemingly excited to help with this endeavor.
While in some future year, the cost of repainting the crosswalk may be included in the budget as routine, this year I need to raise the funds for the paint. The city is generously donating the time for designing the layout, ordering the paint, cleaning the street, and installing the finished product. It may be the first rainbow crosswalk on the East Coast, but even if it’s not, it will be spectacular for our city as a symbol of diversity!
Please help with reaching the goal for this endeavor by making a contribution either by check to the City of Northampton (put Rainbow crosswalk project in the memo line), or by clicking here to go to our facebook page and donate by credit card using PayPal:
Here’s an example of another crosswalk that looks similar to our design:
Check out more Rainbow Crosswalks here!
Any donations will help! Any extra funds will go to a reserve fund to ensure that repainting will happen in subsequent years and/or more crosswalks in the city are made into rainbows. Thank you!
Melinda Shaw
Rants and musings of a 50-something lesbian mom... 