I hope you’re holding up during a heavy, difficult couple of weeks. Between the white supremacist murders of Black people in Buffalo two weeks ago, and the devastating school shooting in Texas earlier this week, we are heartsick and our thoughts are going out to the families of those lost. We hope you are taking the space you need to heal and take care.
At Pride Foundation, we are committed to finding all the ways we can as individuals and as an organization to support students. While our communities are grieving and holding so much, we recognize our collective need to ground ourselves in hope for meaningful change toward a better world for our communities and future generations. One of the sources of tangible hope for us is our Scholarship Program.
Today, I am proud to introduce you to our 2022 Pride Foundation Scholars—108 brilliant student leaders from across the Northwest.
These Pride Foundation Scholars have a wide range of goals and lived experiences. What they all have in common is that they have demonstrated extraordinary leadership—in their own lives, families, communities, fields of study, workplaces, and in our movements for justice. We could not be more proud to support them!
This year, thanks to incredible generosity from our supporters, we were able to increase our total award amount to $705,000—the greatest in Pride Foundation’s history.
Our 2022 Pride Foundation Scholars are working to become teachers, doctors, therapists, doulas, and more. They are artists, poets, and writers. They’re doing incredible research and increasing representation of queer and trans people in STEM. They want to become data scientists. They want to address critical climate issues. This is only a snapshot of the hopes, dreams, and aspirations of these scholars—and I hope you’ll take time to learn more about them.
10 things you should know about the 2022 Pride Foundation Scholars!
As always, we are so incredibly proud to support this cohort of scholars. We truly believe that every single one of these leaders is an integral part of our transformational movement to advance equity and justice for LGBTQ+ people in all communities across the Northwest.
Since 1993, Pride Foundation has awarded over $7.5 million to more than 2,300 scholars. These scholarships belong to our entire community, and we could not be more grateful to partner with you to show continual care and support for these LGBTQ+ students. Thank you for being a part of this community.
Kim Sogge is Pride Foundation Director of Programs.