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News from the Greater New Orleans Foundation: Pride Month!

Greater Good News

Foundation Awards $93,000 to
13 Nonprofits through LGBTQ Fund


This week the Foundation announced new grants from its LGBTQ Endowed Fund totaling $93,000 to area nonprofits. Our LGBTQ Fund provides grants to organizations and programs that increase the quality of life and access to opportunities for LGBTQ individuals and families, particularly the most vulnerable members of the community, including elders, transgender youth and adults of color, low-income LGBTQ people, and LGBTQ youth of color.
 

Since its inaugural year of 2016, the Foundation's LGBTQ fund has awarded over $552,000 in grants to 41 nonprofits across our region. In 2019, the Foundation created a permanently endowed LGBTQ Fund which has already grown to over $1.25M due to generous gifts from our partners.

 

read the press release >>
view the LGBTQ Fund video >>

Habitat for Humanity
Hosts First-Ever Pride Build 


Over the course of three build days in June, New Orleans Area Habitat for Humanity hosted its first-ever Pride Build, bringing together local members of the LGBTQ community and allies to help build a home for a local family – and celebrate New Orleans Habitat LGBTQ homeowners. The Lower Ninth Ward home is being constructed for Tririce Collins and her twin sons. Greater New Orleans Foundation staff served on the planning committee for the event and major sponsorship came from Entergy, Latter & Blum, Cox, and Francis Lucas Consulting. 
 

watch the news coverage >>
view the photos >>

LGBT Community Center of New Orleans
is a Meeting and Events Hub


General operating support from the Greater New Orleans Foundation's LGBTQ Fund enables the LGBT Community Center of New Orleans to carry out its mission. Each year it hosts around 300 meetings, ranging from small groups to larger events of up to 60 people. In addition to youth group meetings, the Center hosts queer dancing, art therapy sessions, movie nights, gaming meet-ups, support groups, fundraisers, and more. Since the Foundation's LGBTQ Fund was founded, the Center has received $40,000 in grants. 
 

read more >>

Our Greater Region

LGBTQ+ news and events from around the 13-parish region.
  • Gambit Weekly recently profiled the Houma Intracoastal Club, a queer-friendly music space in Terrebonne Parish. Like many music venues in the area, the club is working to reopen following Hurricane Ida. Read more.
  • Don't miss Pride Fest at Zony Mash this June 25! With music on two stages by a slate of all LGBTQ-fronted bands, free HIV testing, food trucks, and an art market with local creators, the event will showcase some of the City's most talented creative professionals all while celebrating and supporting the local LGBTQ+ community. Details here.
  • New Orleans Black Gay Pride Weekend's featured event, Community Fest at Culture Park in Gentilly takes place on July 1st. The event is free and showcases music, art, panels, vendors, and food. Tickets can be reserved here

People of Philanthropy

We believe that everyone can be a philanthropist. Meet the people, grantmakers, and nonprofits that are making it a reality.

Meet Foundation board member and trustee Arthur Roger. Roger helped lead the effort to launch and later endow our LGBTQ Fund and is one of our region's most generous LGBTQ philanthropists. 
Name: Arthur Roger
Role: Greater New Orleans Foundation Trustee
Business:
Arthur Roger Gallery

What has been a favorite nonprofit grantee from the LGBTQ Fund? Any favorite projects you have seen the fund support? My involvement with the LGBTQ Fund has really brought home to me the depth of need for services for so many in the gay community. The Fund has sought to address an impressively diverse range of LGBTQ needs including seeking to provide a database tracking crimes against transgender persons and also a well conceived program on how teachers can help LGBTQ students. The LGBTQ Fund also helped to underwrite the very successful Louisiana State Museum exhibition on the history of Gay Carnival.

What is the biggest change you have seen in the LGBTQ community here in New Orleans over the last 30 years? The changes I have witnessed in the past 30 years have been truly extraordinary. I never imagined how far reaching gay awareness would become. I was exhilarated when gay people were given the right to marry. Stonewall is justifiably credited as the important moment in the early gay rights movement but I believe true solidarity came about in the struggle against the AIDS epidemic.

Any good Pride-related books/shows/podcasts you’ve read or watched lately? Lately I have been rewatching movies I haven't viewed in a long time. John Waters is doing his Christmas show this year in New Orleans and I have recently rewatched many of his earlier films. I also watched Fassbinder's Querelle and went back to read again Edmund White's great biography of Jean Genet. Familiarizing young people with queer history is a daunting task not easily carried out.

Best kept secret in the Greater New Orleans region? I think New Orleans is a rare city noteworthy for its cultural abundance. I live in the French Quarter and commonly hear a second line going down Orleans Ave. Just walking over to Rouse's I often hear an incredibly good local band on Royal Street.

What gives you hope for the future of the LGBTQ Community? My optimistic hope for the future of the local gay community is rooted in the passion and commitment I saw in the young applicants seeking assistance from the Fund. I'm not worried.
 

The Good Word

What we’re reading and listening to with a focus on LGBTQ awareness.
  • This month, Out Magazine profiled seven of Louisiana's most talented LGBTQ+ creatives. From Fatsy Klein to Big Freedia, meet seven local creatives who "who keep color and magic alive." Read it here.
  • St. Tammany Parish Libraries have curated a list of LGBTQ-themed books, podcasts and websites. For those who are not familiar with the LGBTQIA+ community and would like to learn more or understand the various LGBTQIA+ exclusive terms, the library has provided a list of resources here.
  • Making Gay History (MGH) is a nonprofit organization that provides a substantive, in-depth look into LGBTQ-inclusive American history. MGH provides a window into that history through the stories of the people who helped make and create that LGBT history. Listen to MGH episodes here.
Lagniappe
 
To Decadence With Love, Thanks for Everything! is a poignant look into the New Orleans Queer Community celebration known as Southern Decadence. This uplifting portrayal follows the lives of two drag queens, Laveau Contraire and Franky Canga, as they prepare for the celebration in New Orleans. The film is directed by local queer creative Stuart Sox and can be found on STARZ, Hulu, and Amazon Prime.
Thanks for joining us for today's edition of The Greater Good. 

Until next time!
The Greater New Orleans Foundation Team
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