The Sexuality and Gender Acceptance Club is an organization that, as its name suggests, accepts and welcomes students of all genders and sexualities. Its advisor is Megan McKenna, director of Residence Life. The club is still meeting in person, but there is also the option of joining over Zoom if circumstances prevent a student from joining on campus.

“The club this year is functioning with in-person meetings with an added Zoom component for students off-campus who wish to attend,” Kimberly Bennett, senior Art Therapy major and president of SAGA said. “Typically for the meetings, we get 1-3 students remotely who join in our activities. Since our meeting space is so large and our weekly attendance is not a very large group, we are functioning pretty normally this year. The only sad part is we cannot sit in our circle like before and Zoom does provide some technical difficulties, like how we are trying to navigate a possible movie night for those over Zoom and in person.”

With COVID restrictions, the club has had to make some changes to keep everyone safe.

“Typically, we have done a bingo event for Coming Out Day with common terms in the LGBTQ+ community to educate those on campus, as well as give out some fun prizes. It typically would get a fairly large crowd in one of the lecture rooms. Due to space limitation, safety, and frankly this semester and its business, I do not know if we can do it this semester,” said Bennett. “We’ve also had a guest panel last year for Transgender Day of Remembrance and our Flaming Hearts (Valentine’s) Dance, where we’d again open it up to a bigger audience and invite other local college clubs like ours to mingle.

Due to visitor policy, I don’t know if this will happen, but I would like to definitely try next semester if the virus subsides.”

However, despite these challenges, SAGA continues to meet whenever they can and hopes to include more future activities. “We do still have our weekly meetings/check-ins where we get together, socialize and have a good time chatting with our members,” said Bennett. “We also do have our family nights, where once a month we get together and do something fun like watching a movie or play Jackbox games. Though we can’t have food, we do have some drinks.”

SAGA is a very active club on campus and provides support and an important social outlet to all those who may be struggling with their sexuality or gender. New members are always welcome at their events.

“Our next upcoming event will be for Halloween. On Oct. 29 we plan to get together and either watch a Halloween movie or play games, with drinks and hopefully prepackaged small candy to give out.”

Unless otherwise notified, SAGA always meets Thurs-day evenings at 8:30 p.m. in Sullivan 3.

“Don’t ever feel like it’s too late to join,” said Bennett. “This club is very laid back and open to new students, friends coming and anything like that so long as we’re being safe.”

If you’re interested in joining the club, email Bennett at kbenne60@lakers.mercyhurst.edu so that you can be added to the email list.