Happy Halloween! Here’s what Prism has been brewing in its cauldron for the last couple months:
- For Spring Hill College’s Diversity & Inclusion week, we provided Safe Space Training for students and co-hosted a virtual forum on religion & the LGBTQ+ community.
- We completed our Community unit at Prism Preteens, which follows a virtue-based curriculum. We mailed the preteens their latest virtue badge and celebrated with a game day after their badge ceremony.
- Per the request of the youth, we added Among Us to our rotating selection of games for our Prism Teens Virtual Event Days. We’ve observed that the teens tend to team up on the facilitators.
- We joined the Mobile County Coalition Against Bullying (CAB), a coalition that works to promote resources, awareness, and education about bullying in the local community.
- In September, members of the Southern Poverty Law Center joined us at a virtual Prism Families gathering for a Know Your Rights training. Participants from all of our programs attended the gathering.
- Prism has interacted with 50 teens, preteens, and parents at virtual gatherings since the start of the pandemic.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
A special thanks to all the special guests who joined us over the last couple months: Champagne Munroe, Jawakatema Davenport, and Khloe Olivia Klein for our Ask a Drag Queen events; Rainbow Mobile’s Amanda Sessions for Celebrate Bisexuality Day; spoken word poet Joi Miner and singer-songwriter Bobby Jo Valentine for Prism Presents; and traveling broadway performer Kavin Panmeechao.
Deepest appreciation to our friends at CenterLink who raised us $2400 at their “Can’t Cancel Pride” event. CenterLink connects LGBTQ+ community centers across the country and works to provide us with the resources we need to do the work we do. YouthLink, a program of CenterLink, hosts Q Chat Space, a digital center of professionally facilitated, live-chat support groups for LGBTQ+ teens. We’re grateful for efforts like this one, so that when our teens need more support, they’ve got more opportunities to find it. Starting in November, Q Chat Space will be hosting a weekly chat in Spanish alongside the other 11 support groups on the Q Chat Space schedule.
FROM THE YOUTH
Several months ago, Walker Waughtal joined the Prism team. When he mentioned during his volunteer interview that he loves D&D, my heart leapt—the teens have been asking us to organize a D&D group for years. Shortly after that interview, Walker began leading Prism D&D. It quickly became one of our most popular gatherings.
Here is what the youth have reported to us about Walker in their facilitator evals:
“Walker got me into DnD, which made me connect to my character and become more accepting of myself. Not only that, he gives cool uncle vibes (if that makes sense), like I can tell him anything and we will both laugh about it. He can turn a bad day into a really great day.”
“He really cares about everyone’s experience when we play D&D and never wants anyone to feel left out. I always look forward to interacting with him on Sundays.”
Thanks for everything, Walker.
BECOME A SUSTAINING MEMBER
Prism is moving towards the new year with momentum, even in the midst of a pandemic. We owe our success as an organization to the talent and dedication of our volunteers, our leadership team, and our board, all of whom belong to our community. It doesn’t stop there—many of you have donated food for our special events, supplies for our activities, books for our LGBTQ+ library, and time and energy to help us put on fundraisers. Prism truly is a collaborative project, by the community, for the community.
To continue on our current trajectory, Prism needs to generate more substantial funding. Because of COVID-19, we lost our two annual fundraisers, which account for almost half of our projected fundraising for our current fiscal year. You can help us make up for the loss by becoming a sustaining member of Prism. To do this, just click the “Contribute” button below and then click the checkbox next to “Make this gift every month” when you donate. Even a small monthly contribution will go a long way towards helping us achieve our goals.
Thanks for supporting the LGBTQ+ youth in our community. If you’ll keep showing up for us, we’ll keep showing up for them.