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• Rainbow Lemonade Stand brings community together

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  Illini Union, Room 323, 1401 West Green Street Urbana, IL 61801
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During the summer months, campus activity usually comes to a standstill as far as student activities are concerned. Clubs and Campus organizations often go on hiatus, postponing activities until the students journey back to the CU area for the fall semester. However, one organization, LGBT Resources, is still up and running, ensuring that its members have a place to turn to at all times of the year.

Every Tuesday from 6:30 to 9 p.m. LGBT Resources holds the Rainbow Lemonade Stand, a social event created to keep LGBT peoples and allies in contact with each other during the summer months. Held in the LGBT Resources’ Office in the Illini Union, the event is free and is open to both students and community members.

“It’s a good place to socialize with other people, to get to know them,” said Louis Ward, a student at the University and patron of LGBT Resources. “I’ve met a lot of friends here.”

Khristian Kemp-Delisser, the assistant director for LGBT Resources and creator of the Rainbow Lemonade Stand, said he believes the program has become a great way for members of the LGBT community to get to know each other. He said the Lemonade Stand’s informal atmosphere, along with the free cookies, brownies and lemonade, generates a connection between LGBT community members that he felt was previously missing during the summer.

“It’s very intimidating for people to enter any community in which they are new and don’t know anyone,” Kemp-Delisser said. “The Rainbow Lemonade Stand helps by offering a kind of stress-free environment where people can walk in off the street and don’t need to already know people in order to fit in or get along. It’s a very welcoming atmosphere.”

Kemp-Delisser said the idea for the Rainbow Lemonade Stand began two years ago. At that time, he said he noticed an increase in the number of LGBT students who remained on campus during the summer. However, Kemp-Delisser said with the increase in number, he also witnessed an increasing feeling of isolation from the LGBT community among its members. In order to provide them with a place to go, he said he started the Lemonade Stand, and he has been impressed with its success thus far.

“We needed a catalyst, something that would draw all of those people together who were hanging out on their own,” Kemp-Delisser said. “That’s what the Lemonade Stand has done. It has been a hub where people can come every Tuesday and see that they are not the only ones.”

And according to Ward, the student and patron of LGBT Resources, that is exactly what Kemp-Delisser and the Lemonade Stand have done.

“Its useful, especially during the summer since there aren’t as many people in the area,” Ward said. “The Lemonade Stand is great because it’s a time where everyone knows that other people will be there to talk in the office.”

Who knew lemonade could do so much?