Greetings everyone I'm Malcolm. Where do I begin? I am a retired Teacher of visually impaired Junior High through High School Students. Being visually impaired myself I believe I had a bit of a knack for it. I was born and raised in Baton Rouge, Louisiana and lived and taught most of my adult life in the City of New Orleans. Being in the Big Easy and being blind was not always that easy but my students often made my days seem easier because their young lives were not always as easy as my younger life. I made it a habit to travel when I could, to experience as much of the world as possible. Now that I am retired I get to travel a little farther and experience cultures for longer periods. Those trips have presented me with many amazing opportunities to embrace and experience other cultures. Some of those experiences have been hard-hitting lessons and more than just subtle reminders, given my few challenges, how fortunate I truly am.

One such visit was the year I spent with my Partner in Manila. The Philippines is truly a remarkable chain of islands. The beauty of the islands and the absolute unrestrained hospitality of the Filipino people are truly an experience to behold and share. The sea views and mountain vistas in such close proximity were breathtaking no matter what perspective you held at that moment. Being blind I prefer to walk as much as I can, I miss many things being confined in a car. My partner and I often would walk day and night, to take in the sounds and smells, the energy of the city is palpable. My partner would describe to me the sights to match the smells and sounds we would experience on our daily strolls. We learned much on these walks, what the city had to offer what it still needed to provide and who were the most at risk and more marginalized. One of the most marginalized communities is that of the LGBTQ+ community.

I want to return and in some way contribute in the hope of offering a better future to those who deserve a chance to live a life they may have not thought possible. The challenge was how to develop a project that would not require annual cycles of fundraising and donating only to repeat the process in the following year. And just like that TheRainBowNavy was born, a commercial Not-For-Profit enterprise maximizing the high points of the city's robust entertainment, travel and tourism market to benefit a segment of the population so often overlooked. It's not an unproven social outreach or business model. I'm not trying to reinvent the wheel, just bring a wheel to a new city and community that could benefit from its presence. This will be a one-time ask to establish a perpetual income that the local LGBTQ+ community is the beneficiary of. With a little help from you, we can create something that will keep on giving.