Pierce County Leaders Celebrated
The Awardees!
The third annual Pride Foundation/Pierce County Rainbow Awards honored the following people and organizations for their leadership.
Kayley Rae, Sapphire Youth Award-Kayley is an emerging LGBTQ leader and musician both at Oasis Youth Center and in the larger LGBTQ community. Kayley speaks out about being LGBTQ at school, at Oasis, at her jobs, and in the community. She has spoken on behalf of Oasis at Lakewood City Council meetings, on speaker panels at Pacific Lutheran University, and at Planned Parenthood.
Lorenzo Cervantes, Pearl Award-Lorenzo moved to Tacoma five years ago. Upon arriving, he started volunteering with Oasis Youth Center and The Rainbow Center. He now works at the Pierce County AIDS Foundation and Oasis Youth Center as the Prevention Counselor. PCAF has supported Lorenzo in organizing an event for monolingual Spanish speakers around National Latino AIDS Awareness Day. In addition, Lorenzo is involved in state and regional HIV prevention work and he organizes the LGBTQ People of Color Monthly Gathering and Yearly Retreat at the Rainbow Center.
Gender Alliance of South Sound, Emerald Organization Award-Gender Alliance of the South Sound (GASS) continually works for the betterment of transgender people, as well as spouses, significant others, friends, and family. They have support groups in Tacoma, Olympia, and Centralia, and a support group for significant others. They offer social opportunities including movies, club mixers, spa nights, and social groups.
Colleen Waterhouse, Ally Award-Colleen Waterhouse has been an active supporter of the LGBTQ community for decades. Much of Colleen’s early connection to LGBTQ issues has been through her active participation in the Pierce County Chapter of the ACLU and Hands Off Washington. In 2001, the City of Tacoma extended antidiscrimination protections to LGBTQ people. Colleen was part of the campaign team that influenced the Tacoma City Council to adopt the ordinance. She was a central organizer in the campaign to make sure that when the ordinance was placed on the ballot, voters would retain the law. In 2008, she was again a central organizer influencing the Pierce County Council to extend domestic partnership benefits to county employees.
Event hosts: Pride Foundation/Pierce County Steering Committee
Gloria Stancich, Diamond Hall of Fame Award-Gloria Stancich is a role model for our community. Her breadth of service and commitment to community work is inspirational. She has lived in the Puget Sound area since 1956 and has been involved in numerous LGBTQ organizations, including Tacoma Lesbian Concerns, The Dorian Group, A Sound Coalition, and Hands Off Washington. She helped host the first Pride Foundation/Pierce County meetings. Gloria wrote a regular column called Coalition Conversations for The South End News, a publication that served as the voice for gays and lesbians in Pierce and South King counties in the late ’90s.
She participated in the first organizing committee for Out in the Park and continued for several years thereafter. She marches annually in the Olympia Pride Parade with the Hooters on Scooters and she proudly scooted beside the first LGBTQ community float to appear in a Daffodil Parade.
Among other activities, some she continues today include South Sound Parents and Kids Group, Tacoma PFLAG, TUFF (Tacoma United for Fairness), Queer Collective, ERA in Oklahoma (1982), Basic Rights Oregon (2004), and NOW (National Organization for Women, 1980-present).
Gloria served as the Project Director for the Pierce County Oral History Project, which documented the work of LGBTA individuals and groups who struggled for equality from the 1960s to the 1990s. This body of work is housed in the Washington State History Society archives. She is a member of the National OLOC (Old Lesbians Organizing for Change/Community) and she is a cofounder of the Puget Sound Chapter.
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