Friday, May 13 San Diego’s LGBTQ community will honor nine local students poised to make a difference in our community at the 2016 Launching Leaders PFLAG Scholarship Awards Luncheon. Recipients represent a broad range of age and experiences and were chosen through a competitive selection process.
The Launching Leaders PFLAG Scholarships program recognizes the importance of higher education for members of the LGBTQ community. Even in 2016, LGBTQ high school students experience verbal slurs and harassment at a rate of up to 84 percent, creating a significant barrier to the desire to continue their education after graduating. While college and university campuses are making improvements to the LGBTQ climate, any assistance our community can give to bridge that step from high school to college is extremely significant.
The individual scholarships have their own specific focus. For instance, the Rob Benzon Memorial Scholarships highlight individuals who have overcome personal hardships to continue their education, the Mary Wagner Memorial Scholarship focuses on those who intend to enter the field of education, while the Richard Geyser Memorial Ethics Scholarship challenges prospective recipients to take on a current ethical problem and propose how they would address this issue.
In 2015, San Diego Human Dignity Foundation (SDHDF) partnered with PFLAG San Diego to create “Launching Leaders” as an event that would both highlight scholarship recipients and raise funds for a sustainable scholarship fund. “Our foundation’s commitment to the LGBTQ community must include the cultivation of future leaders,” explains John Brown, executive director, SDHDF.
The review process was managed by PFLAG Scholarship Chair Hillary Flocke. The panel included Donna Bowersox, Sherry Cohen-Richards, Tinesia Conwright, Drew Jack, Mark McClean, and Jason Schreiber. Each member reviewed the applications, letters of recommendation and essays from each candidate, to assess their choices for each scholarship.
“Through the essays of our applicants, we are reminded of the need to proactively support LGBTQ scholars,” says Jack, the former board president of SDHDF. “Some applicants have experienced barriers to their education such as homelessness, incarceration, HIV-infection, parental abandonment and bullying. However all candidates have chosen to incorporate these experiences into a place of strength.”
“The challenge to achieve academic excellence is a big one for young people, but to achieve academic excellence while living openly as LGBTQ is simply remarkable,” says Eugene La Pietra, founder of the La Pietra Foundation, which is the presenting sponsor of the luncheon.
Tickets for the May 13 luncheon are available at http://pflag.sdhdf.org
