Allison Rogers Week 1

My name is Allison Rogers and I’ve been working at the Memphis Gay and Lesbian Community Center.

I started as a volunteer at the MGLCC when I was a freshman at Rhodes, and over time, I became a part of the tight-knit community and the community became a part of my identity as an activist. I chose to work there this summer because it was familiar to me, but I also knew that the work that I would be doing there would encourage me to step out of my comfort zone. As a volunteer, I would sit at the front desk, answer phones, greet people as they came in, and perform other small tasks for the two full time employees. I was happy to work volunteer shifts each week, but I also wanted to learn more about what the center does for the LGBTQ population of Memphis. The MGLCC offers support and social groups for people of all identities, free HIV testing, programs for youth experiencing homelessness, and many other services. Because the center manages to serve so many people in the Mid-South through outreach and education, even before I became a summer service fellow, I quickly found my niche as I was able to serve on two committees - one to help educate youth about specific the specific sexual health needs of Queer people, and the other to create support programs for homeless transgender youth in Memphis.

This summer, I will be continuing the work that I had started as a sexual health educator, but this time, a lot of the work that I'll be doing is self-directed. I expect there to be some interesting challenges because of this - while I have the opportunity to determine the best way to go about educating people about sexual health for Queer people, I will be responsible for distributing and coordinating information with the other community centers in Memphis. I'm looking forward to the project overall, but I expect it to be a constant work in progress. I know that I will make mistakes along the way, or find out ways to improve upon what I'm doing, but I'm confident that the other staff at the MGLCC will become my sounding board.

One last thing that I'm looking forward to is learning about the role of non-profits in a place like Memphis. Because Memphis has huge disparities in terms of race, class, gender identity and sexual orientation, the MGLCC is critically important to the people of Memphis because it helps to mitigate inequality and advocate for people. Ultimately, I'm curious as to how the organization does this so successfully, and I hope to  learn more about the inner workings of the center in the next few weeks.