WAVERLY - Wartburg College will host woman who uses her vandalized Volkswagen Beetle to raise awareness about homophobia.

Erin Davies, 29, of Tampa, Fla., will speak at 11 a.m. Friday in the Saemann Student Center. The event is free and open to the public.

The address is part of Coming Out Week sponsored by Alliance, a network at Wartburg for allies for people who are gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender.

In April, vandals spraypainted words on her car apparently because she was displaying a rainbow on one of the vehicle's windows. The stickers are associated with gay pride and gay rights.

Davies chose not to remove the paint and launched Fagbug, traveling across the United States to learn about intolerance and gather footage for a documentary.

" … I am particularly interested in learning about what would motivate someone to write that, or more seriously, do something worse," she said.

Davies is paying her expenses with a loan, fundraisers and sales of merchandise. Davies also has sponsors, including Volkswagen.

Her goal is to take the vandalized car to as many communities as possible. She has also driven the Beetle in gay pride parades throughout the country.

"Along the way, lots of people tried to remove the graffiti on my car, told me ways to fix it (and) asked me to move out of hotel parking lots for creating a problem," Davies said.

She doesn't plan to remove the spray paint until at least 1 million people affix Fagbug rainbow stickers to their cars. She wants to complete her documentary by April 18, the first anniversary of the vandalism.

For information, go online at www.fagbug.com.