Red Parka is a hub for contemporary and original art and design in Hobart selling original art prints, children’s books, cards and homewares, and founded and created by Jennifer Cossins. Yay Gay is the idea of Jen, and her partner in life, love and creativity, Tracy.
“We wanted to do something to both celebrate and support the LGBTQI community, looking positively towards the future after the challenges of 2017 and the marriage equality campaign. Yay Gay is our shout out to the world – we are gay, we are happy and we are free to be ourselves. And so are you!!
However, we know from first-hand experience that it’s not always easy to be yourself in this world. And many of our LGBTQI brothers and sisters have faced, and continue to face, greater challenges than we ever have. We wanted to do something positive, to use the platform we have here with Red Parka to help.
So to this end, we decided to donate 25% of the sale price of each Yay Gay product to organisations that support the LGBTQI community, both here in Australia and in other countries where many of our community still struggle for recognition and even survival.
We hope that our products themselves will spread joy, while the money we raise will help support vital programs around the world.
Every six months we look for organisations that best reflect our values and those who have a connection to what we find important. Through our research we found that Pride Foundation Australia (PFA) clearly explained how they operate and the kind of projects they support. This made it an easy decision for us. The focus of their work and the fact that it is a national organisation ticked all the boxes for us.
We can donate with confidence to PFA knowing they have done their homework and have the expertise to support projects which really make a difference to LGBTQAI Australians and their families while we get on with our work creating and developing our business Red Parka and our project YAY GAY!
We are always happy to promote the work of PFA and the projects they fund to help build greater awareness in Tasmania of this great organisation.”
