Pride Foundation- LGBTQ Community Foundation

So far, this fall, Pride Foundation awarded more than $170,000 in grants to 41 projects that support the LGBTQ community through our Cascadia, Inland Northwest and Washington Peninsula granting cycles. These grants continue to demonstrate how giving together can have an immensely positive impact and how vital it is to connect resources to the projects that build our community.

Youth-related grants were the largest recipients of funds. These grants are just one way we work to empower and support the next generation of LGBTQ people. This year’s youth-related grantees include Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound in Washington, Idaho Safe Schools Coalition, and Identity Inc‘s Alaska Bush Youth at Pride Conference 2011, a project aimed at connecting LGBTQ youth in remote parts of Alaska to community services and networks of support – addressing the disproportionately high rates of LGBTQ youth suicide in remote Alaska.

Of course, Pride Foundation grants focus on more than just youth. Dozens of grants were also awarded in the areas of 1) Arts & Recreation, 2) Education, Advocacy & Outreach, 3) Health & Community Services, 4) HIV/AIDS Service Delivery & Prevention, and 5) Lesbian Health. I am always impressed by the diverse nature of our community as we support groups like the ACLU of Idaho, Oregon’s Human Dignity Coalition and Washington’s Puget Sound Old Lesbians Organizing for Change. See the fall grants list with project descriptions below.

I’d like to thank our community volunteers who reviewed dozens of applications, our donors for their generosity and our grantees for providing leadership and creating change.

Note: Grants for Clark, Columbia-Willamette, Columbia Basin, Montana and NW Washington granting regions were award earlier this year as were several Cascadia grants. Grants for Black Hills and Pierce County grants will be confirmed by late December.

Fall 2010 Cascadia, Inland Northwest and Washington Peninsula Grants

ART & RECREATION

Bent Arts (Seattle, WA) www.bentwriting.com $5,000 to develop and implement a social justice and anti-oppression training and evaluation program for the volunteer teaching staff and Board member. Their mission is to promote and encourage written and spoken word among LGBTIQ people and in our communities.

Boise Contemporary Theater (Boise, ID) www.BCTheater.org $5,000 to produce the play NORWAY by Idaho native Samuel D. Hunter. It is the story of a young gay man whose best friend is questioning a lot of things in life. By accident the best friend outs the gay man who is subsequently asked to leave the Christian school they attend. They encounter each other later in life, but fail to make a satisfactory connection.

Gay City Health Project (Seattle, WA) www.gaycity.org $2,500 for the Seattle premiere of The Infection Monologues, a theatrical production adapted from interviews with gay men in the U.S. who tested positive between 2000 and 2005. The work was created by and for gay men in order to expand the narratives of the HIV positive gay male experience. This production will contemporize this work by integrating significant portions of the script with two new monologues/characters, written by local HIV+ queer men in Seattle in 2010 and including a young, out African American gay man and a FTM trans man.

Voices Rising (Seattle, WA) www.voicesrisingseattle.org $5,000 to produce four events in 2011 featuring artists who are LGBTQ people of color. This arts and cultural collective will present performances, workshops, visual art exhibitions, video/film screenings, and information tabling. They produce an annual season of programming that builds a repository for the works of LGBTQ artists of color and creates an incubator of ideas for these artists and the audiences they engage.

EDUCATION, ADVOCACY & OUTREACH

The Alliance, Spokane Falls Community College (Spokane, WA) $3,000 will be used for career center support specific to LGBTQ students. These funds will help to create an LGBTQ portal in the Career Center website which would include a broad range of resources, including information on domestic partner health benefits for various companies, LGBTQ non-discrimination policies for various companies, and the challenges and opportunities of coming out on resumes, interviews, or on the job; connect current LGBTQ students with local LGBTQ alumni/professionals to facilitate the students’ transitions between college and the work world.

American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Idaho (Boise, ID) www.acluidaho.org $5,000 will be used to establish an LGBT Equality Project. In the first year they will conduct statewide polling and town hall style listening meetings, and will host a statewide equality summit. The ACLU is the only Idaho based statewide organization working to achieve policy change to advance and protect the rights of LGBTQ Idahoans. Currently no municipality in the state protects LGBTQ people from discrimination. They will target two cities to get these protections, creating a model for engagement in the many small rural towns of Idaho.

Basic Rights Education Fund (Portland, OR) www.basicrights.org $5,000 to train 150 volunteer leaders around the state to have persuasive conversations about LGBT families with friends, co-workers, neighbors and new acquaintances. This effort will build on a training and organizing model they are testing in partnership with PFLAG Pendleton. Over the past few months, they have coordinated a ‘marriage equality conversations campaign’ with supporters and community leaders in this Eastern Oregon town.

Casa Latina (Seattle, WA) www.casa-latina.org $1,450 for a training to engage staff, volunteers and participants in meaningful discussions about LGBTQ issues, to recognize and learn from the commonalities in both the immigrant and LGBTQ struggles, and to help make Casa Latina a safe zone for the LGBTQ community. They serve over 800 Latino immigrants and their families annually by offering assistance in finding day labor and domestic work, English language programs and help in reclaiming unpaid wages.

Eastern Washington University Pride Center (Cheney, WA) www.ewu.edu $1,800 for support of the Pride Visibility Campaign which continues efforts to create a welcoming climate for LGBTQ students on its campus with a goal of expanding the visibility and empowerment of LGBTQ and ally students.

Human Dignity Coalition (Bend, OR) www.humandignitycoalition.org $5,000 in general operating support to help them build community and grassroots organizing around LGBTQ issues in Central Oregon. One of the foci of these funds will be to strengthen the Queer and Allied Youth Program, a youth led program where young people organize events, educate the community and advocate for issues important to them. They also provide resources to high school Gay-Straight Alliance clubs in Bend, Redmond, Sisters, La Pine and Central Oregon Community College.

Legal Voice (Seattle, WA) www.LegalVoice.org $5,000 to build outreach and engagement of allies in Idaho to further LGBTQ rights in Idaho through impact litigation. Given the conservatism of the state, impact litigation is the only advocacy strategy that appears potentially viable, in the short or intermediate term, to challenge discriminatory, homophobic and sexist practices and policies of the state.

Pat Graney Company (Seattle, WA) www.patgraney.org $3,700 will be used to create and maintain services and specifically dedicated LGBTQ pages on the comprehensive Keeping the Faith/Transitions website to support incarcerated women as they transition from prison to the community. The goal is to build a sense of community among ex-offenders, while increasing their access to services that are safe and affirming of diverse gender and sexual identities.

Puget Sound Old Lesbians Organizing for Change (Gig Harbor, WA) www.psoloc.org $5,000 to continue their networking to older lesbians, the gathering and preserving of ‘Herstories’ in conjunction with the Pacific NW Lesbian Archives, and to host the 2011 Regional Gathering of Old Lesbians. They see their work as being a part of the rising tide of national and local efforts to highlight the effects of ageism and address the inequities in services to LGBT elders and elders in the larger society.

QLAW Foundation (Seattle, WA) www.q-law.org/foundation $5,000 for a series of panel presentations and discussions directed toward non-lawyers, on topics which impact the everyday lives of LGBTQ Washingtonians: GLBT and Growing Older-Legal Issues in the Golden Years; Registered Domestic Partners-Rights and Responsibilities of GLBT families; and GLBT Youth in Schools.

Rainbow Center (Tacoma, WA) www.rainbowcntr.org $5,000 for general operating support to this LGBTQ community center operating in downtown Tacoma. It offers 30 drop in hours a week with access to computers for job searches, a library for resource information and entertainment, and a hot beverage. Staff support is available for general support, crisis needs and cultural competency training. Free meeting and office space is offered to community partners in the evenings and weekends.

Skagit PFLAG (Sedro-Woolley, WA) www.pflagskagit.org $5,000 to bring people from Everett, Whidbey Island, Friday Harbor, Concrete and Bellingham to a performance of Rent at the historic Lincoln Theatre in Mount Vernon, WA. Transportation would be arranged and tickets subsidized for 300 youth and adults out of the 500 seats they expect will be filled for this event. Skagit PFLAG will subsidize out of their funds a pizza gathering after the show. Organizations from around the region will be invited to have information booths.

Spokane Regional HIV/AIDS Speakers’ Bureau (Spokane, WA) www.hivaidsspeakersbureau.net $3,000 will be used to expand service and take HIV/AIDS education to rural schools in Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho. The HIV/Aids Speakers’ Bureau has been giving educational and motivational presentations concerning HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention to the Spokane region for the last five years. These funds will help Spokane Regional HIV/AIDS Speakers’ Bureau to extend their outreach to the middle schools and high schools in rural areas of Eastern Washington and Northern Idaho.

St Paul’s Episcopal Church (Bremerton, WA) www.StPaulsBremerton.org $5,000 for the replacement of old, worn furniture and repairing or replacement of basic equipment. St Paul’s Episcopal Church is a welcoming parish to the LGBT community and offers its meeting and social spaces to many local groups including, LGBT Narcotics Anonymous and Alcoholics Anonymous, PFLAG and Queer BINGO. The improvements made will make these gathering spaces more efficient and comfortable and as a result will better serve the LGBT Community.

HEALTH & COMMUNITY SERVICES

The Center for Transgender Health and Wellness (Bellingham, WA) $2,500 for the development of infrastructure to establish an online referral data base, file for 501c3 tax exempt status, board and officers insurance, and web development. The eventual goal is to open a Seattle clinic to provide direct health services to the transgender community and cultural competency trainings for medical health providers, mental health providers and social service organizations throughout Washington.

HIV/AIDS SERVICE DELIVERY AND PREVENTION

AIDS Housing Association of Tacoma (Tacoma, WA) www.aidshousingtacoma.org $5,000 for general operating funds for Three Cedars House which provides around-the-clock care to HIV/AIDS clients who require care in dealing with their disease and related issues. The goal is to rebuild clients’ health and move them toward more independent living situations.

AIDS Project Snohomish County/Friendship Dinners (Tulalip, WA) www.apsconline.org $2,400 to purchase food and supplies for a monthly dinner for HIV+ people to meet with family and friends, enjoy a wholesome meal and attend a program normally focused on health issues. 30-45 people attend the monthly event which is provided by an all-volunteer crew in a donated space in Saint Paul United Methodist Church. These dinners are home-style meals that are aimed not only at feeding people who might not be able to prepare such a meal but also at counteracting the social isolation many of them encounter.

Humane Society for Seattle/King County (Seattle, WA) www.seattlehumane.org $5,000 for the Pet Project, a program designed to help low-income people disabled by AIDS keep their pets. Clients are matched with volunteers for one-on-one support. Food, cat litter, flea control and other supplies are provided on a monthly basis. Volunteer veterinarians and technicians staff free vet clinics for exams, vaccines, lab work, dental cleaning and medications. Volunteer groomers are also made available. More than 150 clients and their 200+ pets are served annually.

Jefferson AIDS Society (Port Townsend, WA) www.jeffersonaidsservices.org $5,000 for the Urgent Life Support Assistance Program, to support low-income disabled people living with HIV/AIDS by providing cash grants for emergency needs such as food, housing, utilities, medical and transportation needs.

Palouse HIV Consortium (Pullman, WA) $2,500 will be used to help continue providing rural HIV services to HIV+ persons.  The Palouse HIV Consortium strives to facilitate sustainable choices made by HIV+ persons to live where they choose to live and still be able to access those appropriate and competent health and social services needed to maximize their health, self-sufficiency, self-esteem and quality of life.

Sean Humphrey House (Bellingham, WA) www.seanhumphreyhouse.org $5,000 for 24-hour personal, medical, and residential services for very low-income adults living with HIV/AIDS. Residents come to them from hospitals, shelters and off the streets—people who have no other options for assistance. With the help of the staff, volunteers and partner agencies, clients can often return to the mainstream to live healthy, stable and independent lives.

LESBIAN HEALTH

BABES Network – YWCA (Seattle, WA) www.babesnetwork.org $5,000 for the 2011 retreat for 35 women living with HIV/AIDS. The retreat is focused on improving the health and well-being of women who are low-income and come from medically underserved populations. The focus is on mental health, reducing isolation, increasing knowledge of HIV and AIDS treatments, and holding activities to foster self-care and community. The retreat serves to counteract some of the physical and mental health-related challenges of living with HIV while building resiliency on both an individual and group level.

Seattle Counseling Service (Seattle, WA) www.seattlecounseling.org $5,000 to continue and expand its leading edge outreach and support program focused on LBTQ women and Chrystal Methamphetamine: Women OUT (Opening Up Together). 2009 research of women seeking assistance from the Service found that Meth is the primary drug of choice for women, who use on more days than men, engage in more HIV risk behaviors than men, and have a higher incidence of suicide attempts. Women OUT provides a safe place for women to find support, treatment, and recovery; educations to service providers, and training with their own and community clinicians regarding the use of meth in women, especially LBTQ women.

YOUTH & FAMILIES

Bend-It (Seattle, WA) $5,000 for the 2011 four-day festival of queer artists and activists including acoustic and plugged in music lineups, spoken word, drag/burlesque/variety show acts, and space for art, play and independent films. Held during the Seattle Pride Festival, the focus is on building welcoming, liberated spaces and strengthening community through meaningful drug and alcohol free alternatives focused on, but not exclusively, for queer young people.

Big Brothers Big Sisters of Puget Sound (Seattle, WA) www.bbbsps.org $5,000 for mentoring programs focused on LGBTQ youth. Activities include mentor recruitment and outreach, enrollment and matching of youth, match support including professional case management, and evaluation of strength of relationship and youth outcomes. Nationally, the Puget Sound chapter is leading the charge for the national affiliate to evaluate their policies on LGBTQ volunteers, youth mentees, and families, especially in terms of transgender and gender variant volunteers and youth.

Camp Ten Trees (Seattle, WA) www.camptentrees.org $5,000 for general operating support to sustain two weeks of summer camp session for children and youth connected to the LGBTQA communities. Camp activities are designed to empower campers through play in order to enhance self-esteem, life skills, independence, leadership and self-confidence. Offerings include arts and crafts, boating, swimming and swimming lessons, creative writing, archery, dance, hikes/nature walks, discussions, sports, youth organizing, and social justice workshops.

Gay Lesbian Straight Education Network – GLSEN (Seattle, WA) www.glsenwa.org $5,000 for a year-long training project for advisors to Gay-Straight Alliances (GSAs) and similar groups providing queer youth in Washington schools a safe space to meet, bond and engage as a community. The trainings will involve possible GSA activities and events to promote within their groups, ways to empower youth to serve their communities and tactics for bringing substantive change to their schools and to raise the profile of GSAs.

Idaho Human Rights Education Center (Boise, ID) www.idaho-humanrights.org $5,000 for the work of the Idaho Safe Schools Coalition, a grassroots partnership of community organizations, schools, churches, youth, parents and educators dedicated to ensuring that every child feels safe attending school, especially those who are perceived and/or identify as LGBTQ, and/or are children of LGBTQ families. Through direct outreach, the coalition provides advocacy for students and resources and skill-based training to educators. The coalition will strengthen its statewide network of high school Gay-Straight Alliances and human rights clubs by equipping them with resources to address anti-LGBTQ sentiment among their peers, teachers and administrators.

Identity Inc. (Anchorage, AK) www.identityinc.org $3,500 for travel expenses to insure the attendance of youth from Southeast Alaska, Fairbanks, Kenai Peninsula, and from bush villages at Identity Inc.’s 2011 Pride Conference in Anchorage. The conference will focus on these youth sharing their experiences of being LGBT in their home communities. Youth traveling from remote Alaska will have the opportunity to meet and interact with other LGBT youth and to enhance their personal self-esteem and self-worth. Published suicide data predicts 95% likelihood that a young person between the ages of 12 and 19, who is an Alaska Native, lives in a village, is male and is gay will attempt suicide.

Inland Oasis Inc. (Moscow, ID) www.inlandoasis.org $3,700 will be used to obtain a new community center that is versatile, secure, and available as needed. Inland Oasis is expanding some of its services which include: providing HIV testing and case management for low income HIV positive clients; space for a youth group, which will be the only youth program for LGBTQ youth south of Spokane and north of Boise; and a library and resource center for outreach. 

Kitsap County HIV/AIDS Foundation (Silverdale, WA) www.kchaf.org $5,000 to support the continuation and growth of the Kitsap County HIV/AIDS Foundation’s youth program, The Q Center. The Q Center, founded in 2007, is the only program in Kitsap County serving LGBTQA youth ages 14-19. Youth attendance, center activities, and participation from local school organizations grow every year. Pride Foundation funds will be used to support this growth by engaging more volunteers, increasing staff time, and providing more resources for the drop-in center.

Lion’s Pride Cubs (Boise, Idaho) www.lionsprideidaho.com $5,000 for the Northwest LGBTA Youth Conference for Hope to be held in Meridian, ID in July 2011. Funds will be used for rental space, lodging and meals for conference goers, keynote speaker’s travel expenses, materials for workshops, and evening entertainment. Workshops will include creating and maintaining high school GSAs, religion and the LGBT community, how to be an affirming parent or guardian, and how to be safe and out in school.

Mount Vernon High School/Gay Straight Alliance (Mount Vernon, WA) $1,500 for the 4^th annual Over the Rainbow Festival to be held in spring 2011. The festival is free and open to the public and includes entertainment and LGBTQ focused workshops. The festival will open with an all-student cast of the Geography Club, a play about a group of gay and lesbian students who find mutual support when they form a ‘Geography Club’ at their high school. The workshop topics are being chosen to be of interest to and support middle school students who are starting a GSA in one of the two middle schools in the district.

Oasis Youth Center/Pierce County AIDS Foundation (Tacoma, WA) www.oasisyouthcenter.org $5,000 for opportunities and tools for LGBTQ youth ages 14 to 24 to gain leadership experience and training at the annual Oasis Youth Leadership Summit. The three-day event will immerse youth in an overnight/all-day retreat setting, providing an atmosphere in which youth can develop healthy living skills, gain practical leadership experience, acquire techniques for improving the quality of relationships in their lives, and to facilitate the bonds that foster strong and supportive communities. The curriculum design components and activities will also help participants develop connections to their own identity, culture and community.

Odyssey Youth Center (Spokane, WA) www.odysseyyouth.org $4,000 to continue developing Gay Straight Alliance (GSA) clubs and/or other social justice clubs on Spokane’s high school campuses. With these funds, Odyssey will be able to activate two additional GSA’s that are in the development phase, initiate a training program for school counselors and educators, and identify additional schools where they might be able to affect change.

Queer Youth Space (Seattle, WA) www.queeryouthspace.com $5,000 to hire two part-time community organizers and to support the work of the collective through projects and events for young people. They have three main goals: to encourage youth-led queer organizing; to provide spaces for queer youth to build strong communities; and to recognize queer youth as important and powerful figures within the queer community. A big project this year is raising a $100,000 match to the matching grant they received from the City of Seattle which will be used to acquire a physical space and to support other projects.

Youth Suicide Prevention Program (Seattle, WA) www.yspp.org $2,500 for the creation, printing, and distribution of an informational brochure that will be used to educate adults who live and work with middle and high-school-aged youth (parents, teachers and school staff, youth service providers, healthcare professionals, counselors, etc.) and young people about the connections between biased-based harassment/bullying and youth suicide risk. A number of copies will be mailed to LGBTQ youth serving programs and school districts. A downloadable version will be posted on their website.