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The 'Sweet' life of Shannon Wentworth
BUSINESS
by Sarah Toce
2011-07-20

This article shared 5336 times since Wed Jul 20, 2011
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Lesbians around the world are discovering that it's Sweet to travel. Whether departing on a cruise to Cozumel, the Mediterranean, Bahamas, Alaska, or the Caribbean, this eco-friendly method of adventure and community service during vacation has ladies everywhere lining up with their paint brushes out while stuffing rescue puppies down their shirts.

We'll explain that last part in a minute…

For now, check out this exclusive interview with Sweet co-founder Shannon Wentworth.

Windy City Times: What was it initially that made you think of creating an eco-conscious cruise?

Shannon Wentworth: The main thing for us [ at Sweet ] was thinking about what we like to do, and figuring out how to combine it with something that would be a benefit to our community. My co-founder, Jen Rainin, and I are both environmentalists and we really care about the planet and the environment, you know, we want to make things… she's a huge philanthropist, I'm more into grassroots volunteering, but from both of those perspectives, it really made sense to … to combine those ideas, but do it in a way that was going to be fun and empowering for people.

Windy City Times: Is it true that the Al Gore documentary An Inconvenient Truth propelled you into action as well?

Shannon Wentworth: Jen and I saw An Inconvenient Truth, and we were really both quite inspired and moved, but also, wow, depressed, right? We thought, 'That's a huge problem, what the heck can I do in the face of such a catastrophe?' And that's kind of where the idea for Sweet came from because we thought, 'If we make these huge pieces into bite-size chunks it doesn't seem like a ton of work. Before we know it, we'll look back and we'll have done a lot of work, but had a lot of fun at the same time.'

Additionally, what we realized was that we weren't going to be able to make a great change in the world if we didn't get more people involved in the concept. But if you tell people, 'You can't drive your car, and you should feel guilty about this, that and the other thing' all the time, then you're not going to get them to play with you in the sandbox. Guilt is not a good motivator.

Windy City Times: We'd love to hear about some of the contests and interactive games involved in a Sweet cruise.

Shannon Wentworth: In our inaugural cruise, we took 1200 women out on the world's largest carbon-free cruise ever, so we offset the carbon from a cruise ship for an entire week. About 25 percent of our guests that week participated in our projects, that is to say, like, a beach cleanup in Costa Maya, Mexico, where we took a 160 lesbians out and we challenged them to split into teams and to see who could find the most flip flops, who could find the weirdest piece of trash, who could find the piece of trash from the farthest away, etc.

In a 45-minute contest, we managed to pull numerous bags of trash out of the ocean. We found crazy things… like, we pulled a big-screen TV out of the ocean… a sink…all kinds of crazy stuff that just doesn't belong in the ocean. We cleaned up the beach on either side of an all-you-can-eat, all-you-can-drink resort. So as soon as we came back in, you know, everybody had a Mexican buffet, and, you know, all the piña coladas they wanted. And as they were doing the contest, the thing that people kept saying was, "Oh, my god, I never want to drink water out of a plastic bottle again, because I picked up so many water bottles, I picked up so many bottle caps." Disposable razors, medical waste, cocktail straws—you name it. We picked up all this stuff that didn't belong anywhere near the ocean.

It was really, really remarkable just how people had fun on the one hand, right? But on the other hand, their eyes were opened and I didn't have to say anything, you know, they came to their own conclusions about their consumption. And it's not like nobody ever bought a plastic water bottle again, but people were more mindful of their place in the world, and where stuff ends up in the waste stream. And that's what's really important to us. We want to get the ball rolling on our vacations, and then let people carry it. And so when people come home from our vacations, they plan other things in their community and with their friends.

Windy City Times: Have you received any feedback from guests about what they do to keep the ball rolling when they return home, specifically?

Shannon Wentworth: So people have done book drives and toy drives and one of our guests sent some computers to our e-learning center and donated two new computers and some school supplies, etc.

You know, the people who do these projects with us and go on Sweet Cruises are incredibly … they're incredibly bonded, and it's been so amazing. We try to do the contests really first thing, because it helps to break the ice with guests. We figure if you come together to do something as a team—you know, you sweat together—you're not going to be shy about talking to each other going forward.

It's really a different kind of situation than, like, you know, being in a nightclub or at a party or something like that. And our people really have made just the strongest friendships, and that's what's been amazing. It's like—not only is it really fun, but we just got back from a Mexican Riviera cruise where we repainted this kindergarten where over 200 kids attend and the outside of the building was covered in graffiti, the paint on the inside was kind of old, so we repainted it so that in the end it looked brand new. And what that does is restore the community's pride in their school and in their children. It tells the kids that we care.

Windy City Times: One of our mutual acquaintances, comedienne Suzanne Westenhoefer, mentioned that she embarked on a Sweet cruise and that one of the contests involved women stuffing their shirts with puppies. Hilarious! True?

Shannon Wentworth: Suzanne had a joke about people who were stuffing puppies in their shirts. Initially, we were shying away from doing animal projects because we didn't want to be depressing to people. But the way we figured out to structure the projects is you need to make a noticeable difference in a short amount of time. We're not solving all of the problems, but we're getting in there and we're doing something that we can feel really proud of and really good about and that we can build on the next time we go.

Cozumel was our first animal project. We'd already done, like, battered women's shelters, education, environmental cleanups, and planting projects, but that was our first one with animals. We just scheduled to go out to the Cozumel Humane Society one day with a large group and wash the dogs, walk the dogs, pet them, comb them, and donate supplies, etc. So we sent 25 women out to the shelter, and they fell in love, they… like, they loved the ladies who were running it, they loved the way that it was run, they loved the animals … and we ended up adopting 13 dogs and two cats. My cofounder, Jen Rainin, stepped up and said, "If you guys really will do this, I'll pay for the transportation." So she paid for the cost to get the animals home. People are so happy with their Cozumel dogs, and that was really, really cool and very unexpected.

And then the women, on their own, went out to the shelter, like, you know, every day, to check on their animals, or to hang out with them. So it was really amazing. We kind of just point our guests in the right direction and then let them lead, you know? If they want to do more of it, hey…that's fine.

Windy City Times: Are you ever worried that a contest or community activity won't go over so well?

Shannon Wentworth: We're always surprised because, every time, I'm like, "Oh, this one's not going to work, they're not going to want to do this, it doesn't seem fun to, like, you know, paint something on your vacation." And then, bam, they're all, like, into it and asking us, "What more can we do?" and everybody is having fun. It's my perpetual worry that we'll have a project that fails or that we'll get there and the recipient won't really need anything. But so far, the projects that we've picked and the things that we've done have just been remarkable. It's this kind of magic that's happens and I'm always like, you know, "It can't happen again like that," but then it happens every single time! I just watch everybody grab their paint brush or walk their dogs, and I get this huge wave of chills and pride and, you know, it's a really, really amazing thing that we get to do, it's fun and we're doing it in paradise!

Windy City Times: Being composed of lesbians onboard, how do you approach travel into a community where being gay is more taboo than the standard?

SW; We do sometimes go into communities where it is not safe to be out and openly gay and where people don't really know what that looks like. We go into these communities as open, proud lesbians who don't look like gangsters, you know. Some of us could pass for not being gay, but it doesn't matter in the end when they do learn about us because we show care for their community and connect with them.

I don't believe that discrimination can exist if you look somebody in the eyes. I don't believe that people just inherently hate each other. I believe that it's actually quite the opposite, and we're meant to love each other and connect with each other. And the more connections we can make with people who don't agree with us—personal connections—the faster we're going to be able to change homophobia throughout the world. People come up to us and they say things like, "I never really understood what this [ being gay ] was like, but you guys are like, you know, people." Exactly—we are all the same.

Visit www.DiscoverSweet.com .


This article shared 5336 times since Wed Jul 20, 2011
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