March 8th, 2023

Happy Women's History Month!

This month, LGBT Meeting Professionals Association is honoring Women's History Month! During the entire month of March, LGBT MPA's Weekly Insider will provide articles all about Women's History Month and highlighting LGBTQ+ Women's History!

100 Years Ago, This Lesbian Doctor Helped Contain NYC's Typhoid Epidemic

Remembering Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, a pioneering public health professional who changed the course of medical history.

Three thousand New Yorkers were infected with Salmonella typhi in 1907, a disease that had a 10% mortality rate at the time, and it’s believed Mary Mallon, an Irish immigrant who worked as a cook for families in the city, is the main cause of the entire outbreak.

Assistant Commissioner of Health Dr. Sara Josephine Baker, who was “instrumental in identifying” Mary as the source of the epidemic, went to a house where Mary worked to test her. Dr. Baker and the police who escorted her “were met by an uncooperative Mary, who eluded them for five hours;”

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Join LGBT MPA at Power of Purpose: Business Events Industry Week!

LGBT MPA will be attending Power of Purpose: Business Events Industry Week and exhibiting at Showcase for the second time!

During PCMA Convening Leaders this year, LGBT MPA presented our Gender's Impact on the Business Events Industry for the first time. We are proud to announce we will also be presenting this course at Showcase on March 8th at the Gaylord National Resort and Convention Center at 2:45PM!

During this conversation, a gender-diverse panel of business event strategists will share their stories and insights into their professional experiences. The panelists will also discuss the range of current challenges and barriers that members of the transgender community have and continue to face when booking and attending events. Learn to: Understand the experiences of gender-diverse populations as they relate to the business events industry, gain awareness of existing and future implications regarding transgender issues and business events, and identify opportunities and methods to make events safer and more inclusive for transgender, nonbinary and gender-expansive participants.

Join us at Showcase, a part of Power of Purpose: Business Events Industry Week, to learn more about how to create business events that are gender-expansive and inclusive.

SPIN Introduces New Podcast Host!

Listen to LGBT MPA founder, Dave Jefferys, as he introduces the new SPIN podcast host, Ashley T Brundage. Dave and Ashley both make impacts as they put the SPIN on LGBT issues in the meeting and event industry. Hear a little bit of history behind the organization and begin to build a relationship with our new podcast host Ashley as she puts an empowering SPIN on the world.

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U.S. LGBT Identification Steady at 7.2%

After showing perceptible increases in 2020 and 2021, U.S. adults’ identification as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something other than heterosexual held steady in 2022, at 7.2%. The current percentage is double what it was when Gallup first measured LGBT identification a decade ago.

The data are based on aggregated polling data from 2022 Gallup telephone surveys, encompassing interviews with over 10,000 U.S. adults. In each survey, Gallup asks respondents if they identify as lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender or something else, allowing them to choose multiple identities.

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New LGBTQ+ Conference to Connect Queer Businesses and Entertainment

An LGBTQ+ business and entertainment conference is holding its first in-person event after a virtual launch during the pandemic. Unleashed LGBTQ+ will be held in Dallas, Texas, on September 22-24, 2023.

The event, launched by founder Wesley Smoot, will bring together LGBTQ+ professionals for several days of panels, workshops, performances, and keynotes around the LGBTQ+ market, according to a news release.

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Year of the Sustainable RFP

It is an understatement to say that the sourcing conversation in 2023 has gone way beyond dates and rates. Event organizers are now tasked with considering everything from bandwidth in the ballroom and bleisure opportunities to the size of the culinary program’s greenhouse gas footprint.

Dana Jackson, senior global sourcing manager with Bishop-McCann, shared that planners are increasingly tuned into client values around sustainability, inclusivity and diversity. “Organizations are shifting to line up their actions with their words,” she said. That includes adding contract terms that outline practices such as donating leftover meals and decor, housekeeping policies that reduce water waste and use of environmentally friendly products.

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Celebrate Women's History Month in Loudoun

March is Women’s History Month – a celebration of the contribution of women to events in history and contemporary society.

Women have made a more than significant contribution to Loudoun in the development of the county as a renowned restaurant, craft beverage and tourism destination. Here we profile some of the dynamic female entrepreneurs who make Loudoun such a unique and appealing place to visit.

Cheryl Strasser & Bre Grant, Cowbell Kitchen

Hands down one of the most elaborate salads in all of Loudoun is the seasonal Farm Bowl – a delectable mélange of roasted veggies, farm fresh greens, grains, beets, harissa, hummus, felafel and more – made at pocket-sized café and bakery Cowbell Kitchen, downtown Leesburg. Fans of “The Bowl” can thank Cowbell owners Cheryl Strasser and Bre Grant, the all-woman team who run the business. They formed a close bond after Bre’s sister, Kaeley, tragically passed away in 2018. Cheryl and Kaeley had started the original Cowbell Kitchen on Market Street. Together, Cheryl, a baker of 30 years, and Bre, a marketer, keep Kaeley’s dream going at their King Street spot, making sweet-smelling cakes, cookies, pastries and pies on top of cheese and bacon filled breakfast sandwiches, avocado toast, quiche, buckwheat pancakes and that incredible Farm Bowl – all ingredients sourced from regional farms. Magnificent.

Dana Alfahham, Dana’s Cake Shoppe

Ten years ago, Syrian native Dana Alfahham was studying cake decorating in Dubai and working as a baker at a British school, considering a move back to Damascus with her husband and children. Syria was at war, however, and not the best place to return to. An opportunity arose to move to Virginia and after several years making and baking wedding cakes in the DC region, she and her husband opened Dana’s Cake Shoppe in the Village at Leesburg in 2020.

The now wildly successful enterprise makes everything from cakes and gourmet pies to macaroons, cheesecake, cookies and fruit tarts and employs an all-women team of 12 bakers, cake decorators and baristas. The shop recently expanded to offer baking and cake decorating classes.

“Everything I bake is from scratch,” Alfahham said. “I’ve developed my own recipes for the best texture, using high-end ingredients and European-style batter. As for decorations – you tell me what you want, and I will design it.”

Who is her inspiration this Women’s History Month?

“My mother,” Alfahham said. “She baked for me all the time growing up in Syria and gave me my passion.” The future is in good hands, meanwhile. Dana’s three young daughters can often be found helping her in the cake shop. “I hope they find their American Dream here like I did,” she said.

Lori Corcoran, Corcoran Vineyards & Cidery

California-born Lori Corcoran wanted to be an FBI agent and studied Administration of Justice at college. Instead, when she and her family relocated to a farm outside Waterford in 2002, they planted vines, started making wine (and later beer and cider) and never looked back. The FBI’s loss has been the craft beverage scene’s gain. Corcoran, the wine and cider maker at Corcoran Vineyards & Cidery, has an affinity for the whiskey barrel-aged port she makes, one of which she has cleverly titled USB. (USB port – get it?) While the family sold the beer business in 2017, they have ramped up cider production, making crisp, dry champagne-style ciders with names such as Sinful (“so good it must be a sin”) and the barrel-aged Knot Head with hints of vanilla. “The skill is finding alchemy between art and science,” Corcoran said. “The chemistry is in the balance; the art is in the finish.” What’s it like being a woman in the beverage industry in Loudoun? Corcoran said she doesn’t see any difference, only that people are more amazed when they realize she does it all herself. She has heard women are supposed to have a better palate than men. “Who knows, but if we understand flavor profiles better maybe that’s one of our innate advantages.”

Manisha Shah, Stone Manor Boutique Inn

It’s 8,000 miles from India to Loudoun but that didn’t stop immigrant Manisha Shah from bringing a taste of India to DC’s Wine Country®. In 2018, Mumbai born Manisha and her husband Prashant bought the beloved 1905-built Stone Manor Boutique Inn in lush countryside outside Lovettsville. Manisha, a marketing professional and architectural school graduate, has introduced a distinctive Indian finesse to the interiors and a dynamic flair to the events the property is known for. On top of hosting overnight guests, she caters as many as 45 weddings a year, preparing delectable Indian dishes for the occasion. "I have been cooking for family and friends as long as I've been in America, since the 80's,” Shah said. “Stone Manor allowed me and my family to spread our love of food and weddings to others.”

Holly Chapple, Hope Flower Farm & Winery

Loudoun women are leaders in the local craft beverage, food and restaurant business, but they also drive the county’s blooming flower scene. A stone’s throw from the quaint village of Waterford, Hope Flower Farm & Winery is the sweet-scented floral business of long time Loudoun native Holly “Flower Mamma” Chapple. Her mostly all-women team offers everything from pick-your-own to flower arranging classes, ready-to-order garlands, bouquets and wreaths and subscriptions to a floral CSA. They also host festival weekends to celebrate Tulip Days, Peony Days and Dahlia Days with live music, picnics, flower-picking and glasses of farm-made cider and imported wine. Upcoming events to look out for? Tulip Day on April 8 (try the "Jack Cat Hard Cider" after picking your tulips) and a Flower Moon Party on May 9 – so called because the Full Moon in May produces the densest bloom.

Dana Green, Restocked Sneakers

A destination sneaker store is not the first thing that springs to mind when one thinks of Loudoun. Waterford resident and longtime “sneakerhead” Dana Green changed all that when she opened Restocked Sneakers in late 2021, an upscale sneaker boutique opposite Raflo Park in downtown Leesburg. The trendy locker-sized shop stocks the latest athletic pumps from Adidas and Nike as well as rare Jordans, Kanye West's Yeezys and hard-to-find, lesser-known brands. They also collect and trade rare and vintage sneakers.

A former Secret Service agent turned serial entrepreneur – she and husband Reggie owned a cement mixing business and shares in a gymnasium franchise – she attributes her entrepreneurial flair to her grandfather, a barbershop owner.

“I always knew I wanted to own my own business,” Green said. “He was my inspiration.”