Why Delaware GLU exists...

On October 7, Delaware GLU was presented to an audience of about 150 people at the Ignite Wilmington conference.
"Ignite Wilmington is an information exchange for fostering and inspiring Wilmington’s creative community. In one evening, you’ll hear passionate speakers from our creative and technical communities talking about interesting current projects or favorite ideas for just five minutes. Presentations will educate and inspire you, and maybe even make you laugh in the process."
-- from their website: www.ignitewilmington.com


The Speech:
DelawareGLU is Delaware's first Gay/Lesbian news blog. It's a blog I've started in an attempt to bring order to the gay community of DE. Online, you can find it at: delawareglu.blogspot.com... the G.L.U. stands for Gays and Lesbians United ... because we've got to stick together!

This was a concept I was thinking of doing for a while.
I had known about a website in Philadelphia that listed upcoming events and miscellaneous information in regard to the gay population. This was my primary inspiration.

After thinking about it, I came to realize that Wilmington could pull this off, but there's more to Wilm's population that simply those in Wilmington: there's Hockessin, Newark, there's even Middletown. All of whom live close enough that they are willing to drive here and be patrons of the city. This is paralleled in the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisex, transgender) community. So I couldn't ignore events at UD, Dover, or Rehoboth, which is a nationally renowned gay destination.

Consequentially, for this to be successful, I had to make this calendar be all-encompassing to the state of DE. This is possible because Delaware is a small state. There are about 7 or 8 primary LGBT organizations and each of these organizations have their own separate mission statement. I would notice on Facebook, Facebook being a common ground to make your announcements, these groups would post their events. It saddened me that some of these events would go unnoticed because many people don't even know these groups exist (COLAGE or PFLAG). There were so many amazing things happening independently from one another with little to no support from other groups, and they all just needed some form of ...glue!

So I decided to start a blog. My theory was: If nobody else will, then I guess I have to! I decided to take the initiative and make it my responsibility. After talking to Michelle K Fitzgerald, primary blogger for DE Arts, she requested to meet up and helped me set it up.

It's still a very grassroots concept, it's no giant organization, but I think it can be a platform for greater things. When you visit, you'll see I post up events from the local organizations, anything regarding LGBT news, or any random fun stuff (videos, music etc). Now that it exists, Delawareans have a place they can go to stay informed!

After a few months passed, I decided to take advantage of FB to create a page for DEGLU because that's pretty much where the public goes. We just reached 200 fans; I can see us having more, but it might take time.

This is ultimately a way to use technology such as the internet at its best to connect the gay community. Compared to the LGBT community 10 to 15 years ago, Wilmington's current LGBT community is broken. I hear from older residents they had 3 gay bars in the downtown area and the Pride festival was held in Rodney Square! The thought of that almost seems like a joke, we have one gay bar and its hard to create community when it seems people don't want to be around each other.

In January, I sent a questionnaire to 300 people, both friends and strangers, asking for their opinion of how to generate community spirit. A large majority of the responses were wishes that we could have just one building or one cafe to call our own. Since then, I've been toying with the idea of starting an LGBT community center right here in Wilmington. There's one in Rehoboth, but that's in Rehoboth.


A community is a group of people who live in the vicinity of the area. It's a group of people who have some connection, some sense of family, but many of these people are strangers to one another its sad when Wilmington has a good amount of great people.

Before I finish, I simply would like to take a moment to inject that I'm 25 years old. Although I may be young, I hope my age is perceived as an advantage. I'm essentially the future of this city. So by being involved now, I have the potential to develop this city into what I see it looking like and that's half the reason I got involved.

This is exactly the reason Ignite exists. It's all about motivated people, motivating people

Finally I'd like to say Thanks to the people at Ignite for inviting me.
Have a good night.