Rainbow Families is a community group created by and for LGBTQ families, their Straight Allies, prospective parents, and all other supporters, regardless of family size, ethnicity, or culture. Rainbow Families strives to promote and cultivate a healthy and strong community through maintaining an active online community and holding at least one "Family Fun" event per month. Rainbow Families participate in panels, trainings, and discussions for classes, agencies, and various groups to increase the knowledge, understanding, and visibility of the LGBTQ family units It is a goal of Rainbow Families to mobilize community members to represent themselves, to work with Foster Care/Adoption agencies to recruit parents from within the LGBTQ community, and to work with a state representative to introduce legislation to legalize second parent adoption in the state of Arizona.
Monthly events do not adhere to schedule as families' times of availability change. Almost all Rainbow Family event ideas come from within the Rainbow Families Community. Monthly events exist to promote growth and solidarity within our Community and Families. These events are a time where participants can share discussion and fun! Some of our events to date include: Bedrock Family Bowling, Family Portrait Days, Splash Pad and Picnic Sunday at Brandi Fenton Park, Apple Annie's, Picnics at locations such as; Mt. Lemmon and Christopher Columbus Park, and Funtasticks! Rainbow Families tries to keep events at no or low cost to promote inclusiveness of all economic backgrounds.
Informational and Advocacy Events often are also a building block within the Rainbow Families foundation. Rainbow Families has also started and informational series of Foster Care/ Adoption Community Conversations. These conversations will be used to inform and in engage in discussion with the community regarding foster care/ adoption, the recruitment of foster/ adoptive parents within the LGBTQ community, and the introduction of a bill into legislation to legalize Second Parent Adoption within in the state of AZ. Rainbow Families also participate in activities held at/ by Wingspan and its programs, as well as in other Community Programs.
Rainbow Families is in the processes of creating a resource guide of LGBTQ family friendly providers, stores, schools, family fun locations, and online resources for our existing Community as well as newcomers! You can visit the Rainbow Families group online at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainbowfams/, to ask information from existing community members. We may not always have the answer, but this community will help you locate, to the best of our ability, the necessary information. Also Gay Parent magazine may be picked up or informational literature and videos are available by visiting Wingspan during hours of operation.
You may visit online group page at http://groups.yahoo.com/group/rainbowfams/ and select membership or you can contact Rainbow Families via email rainbowfamilies@wingspan.org.
