WeHo Pride 2022 - Community Group Application

Mar 21, 2022

submission #50

Organization/Group Information

Organization/Group Name	Los Angeles Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence
Applicant Name	Sister Miracle
Applicant Title or Relationship to Organization/Group	Sister Miracle
Applicant Email Address	[email protected]
Applicant Phone Number	+13109030401
Please briefly describe your organization/group and its mission or purpose:	We are an Order of 21st Century Drag Nuns dedicated to making people happy while stamping out guilt and shame brought on by the judgments of society. We share kindness, love, and laughter as a source of personal empowerment and pride. We widen the spectrum of self-identification and possibilities. We do this by being our natural fabulous selves, making room for others to be as naturally fabulous as they are meant to be. We believe in freedom of expression, teamwork, effort, and diversity. We are a family, committed to social activism, social service, and spiritual development. We do this while raising much needed funds to help various community-based service organizations and charities mostly in the HIV/AIDS and LGBTQIA+ communities. We have raised over $350,000 in the past 26 years. All donations for charities go directly to those charities as we are a self-supporting organization.
Is your Organization/Group a 501c3? (It is not a requirement that your organization be a 501c3)	Yes
Please briefly describe the Organization/Group's connection to LGBTQ Pride	As our purpose is LGBTQ activism, we Los Angeles Sisters work to unite various factions of the Southern California LGBTQ community. We also raise drag awareness among individuals, businesses, and organizations that are often ignorant or even hostile to members of the Drag, Trans & Nonbinary population. Because we spread joy and erase shame, we manifest at Pride parades, celebrations and events. We have done so for decades. We instigate LGBTQ Pride simply with the presence of our ministry of public manifestation and habitual perpetration. Our formidable public appearance creates a safe space where others can express their diverse LGBTQ selves pridefully. We have Orders in over 20 U.S. states as well as in Canada, Australia, Europe, and South America. We all raise funds for LGBTQIA+ advocacy organizations.
Please briefly describe the Organization/Group's connection to West Hollywood	Businesses in West Hollywood have hosted charitable fundraising events produced by the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence for many years. The Sisters often did our Safe Sex ministry on the streets, at the bars, in the clubs and at public events in West Hollywood during the AIDS crisis years. We have been a welcomed presence at Pride events in the city. Some of the Nuns in our order are longtime residents of West Hollywood. The Sisters are currently engaged in putting on and event for the 2022 WeHo Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival with WeHo Pride Arts grant recipient Don Tinling who is a fully professed Sister.

WeHo Pride Integration

In what way is your organization/group seeking to integrate with WeHo Pride?

Option 1: Activate a designated space in the footprint of a WeHo Pride event held in the vicinity of West Hollywood Park and San Vicente Blvd. during the weekend of June 3-5, 2022

Option 1 - Space within WeHo Pride Footprint

Please describe you proposed programming/activity within the WeHo Pride footprint:

We request at 10’x10’ booth where we can perform our ministry at the Pride Festival. As Drag Nuns we are Social Artists who use creative skills to work with people & organizations to affect positive change. Our joyful interference engages with the public to spread joy and eliminate stigma and guilt, a necessary key component of a Pride Festival. In commercialized pride events of the past we have seen how our manifestation at Pride is so necessary to help welcome people to West Hollywood and make a safe and inviting space for the wildly diverse, both economically and culturally, LGBTQIA+ population who comes to West Hollywood Pride. Our space at the event creates a safe place where people come to open up to us about their LGBTQIA+ experiences. It will be a fun comfortable lounge space where people can come sit with us and learn about our ministry and what we do. The booth also serves as a place of community outreach so members of other organizations can meet us and get to know what we do so we can be of service to their organizations in the future by helping them raise needed funds and awareness for their organizations as we are a 501c3 non-profit where 100% of money we help raise for organizations goes to those organizations. We will also use our booth to do our first Pride Flag Festival which we will be doing as street performance as part of the 2022 WeHo Pride LGBTQ Arts Festival in which the Sisters will display 17 different color guard pride flags and engage with festival goers to pledge their allegiance to their pride flag in sync with the WeHo Pride Festival theme of “With Liberty, Diversity, Inclusion and Progress for All!” Along with participants of the Write Out Proud LGBTQ+ writers workshop, we will help festival goers write and record these simple pledges with the Sisters and their favorite flags to post on their social platforms. Any and all participation with the Sisters is free.

Will your organization/group be requesting supplemental funding from the City for programming and activities as a part of your footprint in WeHo Pride?

Option 2 - Separately Produced Event

Please describe you proposed event:
Will you be requesting supplemental funding from the City?	No

Agreement with the City of West Hollywood

Please note that, if selected, your organization may be required to provide insurance and enter into a written agreement with the City of West Hollywood.

I agree