Adventure Ends as Sweet Calls It Quits

It was an adventure for six years, but Sweet, the eco-lesbian travel company, is calling it quits on its "do-goodery" vacations.

Shannon Wentworth, founder and CEO of Sweet Ventures LLC, posted a short note on the company website last month announcing that she was filing for Chapter 7 bankruptcy.

"I write this with a heavy heart," wrote Wentworth, who bought out co-founder Jen Rainin in September 2012. "Due to poor sales and our inability to raise enough capital to continue operations, Sweet has no choice but to file for Chapter 7 bankruptcy protection. All operations cease immediately."

Wentworth added that a bankruptcy trustee would oversee the liquidation and the refunds for scheduled trips.

Sweet's 2014 trips were being marketed up until the abrupt shutdown February 3.

As of press time, Wentworth, a 41-year-old lesbian, hasn't filed the paperwork in bankruptcy court, according to a search of case filings.

Sweet set sail on its 28th and final cruise to the Western Caribbean in November 2013, Wentworth wrote in an email to the Bay Area Reporter.

Sweet is registered with the California Attorney General's office under the California Sellers of Travel Act and the California Travel Consumer Restitution Corporation, which only protects California travelers who book vacations in California.

The consumer restitution office didn't respond to the B.A.R. 's request if any travelers have filed complaints against the company.

Wentworth declined to respond to the B.A.R. 's request for comment until after the legal process is completed, she wrote in an email.

Sweeties Unite

On January 13, prior to Wentworth's decision to dissolve the company, she sent out an S.O.S. message to "Sweeties," as Sweet called its guests, asking for help to raise $25,000 by January 17 and urged them to book their trip to Cozumel as soon as possible. Overall, in order to keep operating in 2014, Wentworth needed to raise $150,000 and sell out the Cozumel vacation by the end of January, according to the email announcement.

Supporters cried out, "Save our Sweet!" to lesbian Ellen DeGeneres, host of the Ellen Show, and other potential investors by spreading the word on Facebook.

Unfortunately, Sweet couldn't be saved.

"We all feel bad about it. We all worked so hard," said Babs Daitch, who was the director of programming for Sweet. She took a sabbatical from the company in May 2013, she said.

Daitch, a lesbian travel industry expert and owner and tour guide of Thanks Babs! The Day Tripper in Las Vegas, said that Wentworth tried every way possible to make Sweet work, but in the end there weren't enough women booking vacations.

"I felt really sad," said Crystal Phears, a 32-year-old lesbian, about when she learned that Sweet was bankrupt. "I really enjoyed going on these Sweet trips."

She had traveled several times with Sweet and adopted a cat and dog during two separate Sweet trips and was planning on taking her wife Rocio Penaloza, 38, on a Sweet trip in September when she learned of the company's problems.

Phears told the B.A.R. that she's been on trips where resorts were completely sold out by Sweeties. Yet, the last cruise she went on Wentworth couldn't charter the entire ship, so Sweet's guests mixed with other passengers.

"I know a lot of people are very devastated," said Phears. "It's a shame that this is happening because they do so much for the community. Wherever they go they give back and that's what I liked about Sweet a lot."

Good Will Travel

Social justice is in Wentworth's blood. A Bay Area native, Wentworth and her younger sister were raised by their mother, a phone company service representative, in Contra Costa County. Protecting the environment and equal rights grabbed her early in life and became a philosophy to live by. At the end of last year she moved with her young son, Theron, to the Sierra Nevada foothills outside of Yosemite.

Sweet was Wentworth's way of getting people on board with changing the world while seeing it and having fun. She spoon-fed change to lesbian travelers and their friends with "voluntourism" excursions that lasted from an hour and a half to four-hours wherever Sweet traveled. The excursions included cleaning up beaches, painting children's hospitals and schools, planting trees and restoring wetlands, helping animals in shelters, and more.

In total, Sweeties logged more than 5,500 hours of community service in five years since the inaugural cruise to the Caribbean in November 2009.

Her brand of vacationing brought queer women together with locals at destinations in countries where homosexuality is more often than not criminalized. The voluntourism excursions left locals and vacationers feeling good and a little more knowledgeable about each other.

In addition to the excursions, each Sweet vacation was designed to have as little impact on the environment as possible by reducing vacationers' carbon footprints in partnership with Carbonfund.org, a carbon reduction and offset organization.

Wentworth, along with Sweeties, also donated more than $650,000 to local community and LGBT organizations abroad and domestically, she wrote.

For all the giving Sweeties did, Wentworth made travel affordable offering Sweet travelers payment plans and organized vacations around all-inclusive resorts and cruises.

In an unusual turn of events and as testament to Wentworth, Sweeties are already planning vacations together on Sweet's forum. Some of her loyal guests are planning a Sweet reunion in Isla Mujeres, Mexico in September and they are inviting the Sweet staff to thank them, said Daitch and Phears.

"They've invited Shannon and the staff to come with them so they can say, 'Thank you,' for Shannon being so nice," said Daitch. "That's the amazing part of this thing, even though Sweet isn't officially there anymore."