Local social-justice agency Bread & Roses Community Fund awarded scholarships to five young men for their contributions to the LGBT community. The fund held a reception Oct. 1 for the five winners of the 2009 Jonathan Lax Scholarship, a grant program created to honor the memory of the late, openly gay entrepreneur who was a pioneering HIV/AIDS activist in Philadelphia. This year’s winners are Craig Richie, Nicholas DeRoose, Douglas Cooper, Robert Kelly and Christopher Howland. Lax himself created the fund in 1994. This year’s recipients were chosen from a pool of 30 applicants and each received a $4,000 scholarship. “They’re a really exceptional group. They represent everything Jonathan was hoping to do with this scholarship fund,” said Casey Cook, Bread & Roses executive director. “Jonathan himself cut his teeth as an activist at a time when people with HIV/AIDS weren’t able to get the medications they needed to survive. In managing the scholarship fund and awarding these scholarships every year, we have an opportunity to create leaders who, like Jonathan, will fight for justice and change, which I think is what this year’s recipients will do.” Richie, 19, said his scholarship was especially appreciated; for financial reasons, he had to take this semester off and wait to start college until the spring. An ’09 graduate of Jenkintown High School, Richie said he may start at either Temple University or Goucher College in Maryland as an undecided major, but is looking to explore theater and education. Richie served as president of his school’s gay-straight alliance and, through his volunteer work with Equality Forum, helped develop the Eastern Pennsylvania GSA Database, a cohesive collection of regional student LGBT organizations. He also was the first openly gay student-body president of his high school, which he said was a relative non-issue. “I came out the second half of my junior year and my school was so small — I had a graduating class of 48 — that I was enough of a figure at that time for it to not really matter. When I came out, it didn’t really change much,” he said. “I was the only out gay male in the school, and I think that some of the students were actually excited. I don’t know if there was anyone who was homophobic, but I’d surrounded myself with enough people who were so positive that anyone else would have been in the minority.” DeRoose, 24, moved to Philadelphia from Singapore in 2008 and is set to graduate from Temple University in 2011 with a bachelor’s degree in journalism. DeRoose said he was involved in LGBT activism in his home country and eventually decided to continue that work in Philadelphia. “When I came over, I was on the fence deciding whether I should be involved in the community or just stay low-key and try to concentrate on my studies,” he said. “But I was looking for a gay Asian group and I saw that there wasn’t one and I was like, How is this possible? This is the U.S. This is Philadelphia. How can’t they have these resources?” Following that realization, DeRoose founded Queer Philadelphia Asians, a networking and activist group, and also started volunteering at ASIAC and the Delaware Valley Legacy Fund. DeRoose said he was looking for financial-aid opportunities but found few because most scholarships require the applicant to be a U.S. citizen. Luckily for DeRoose, who has two siblings in college and has to pay $10,000 a semester in international student fees, the Lax Scholarship doesn’t mandate citizenship. “Any help is better than no help, and I’m very, very grateful for this,” DeRoose said of the grant. “And it’s sort of an affirmation of the work that I’ve been doing in terms of community organizing. That’s very reaffirming.” Cooper, 22, is also studying at Temple University, and will graduate next spring with a degree in graphic design and photography. The Morrisville native has plans to eventually spearhead the art direction at an ad agency or print publication but, for his short-term post-college plans, aims to become a junior designer, fusing his love of photography with his graphic-design skills. Although he’s limiting his extracurricular activities to concentrate on his studies this year, Cooper has been involved with the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Choir, the Temple University a cappella choir and Temple’s concert choir. He’s also volunteered with Equality Forum and was an active participant in Prop. 8 demonstrations last year. Cooper said the Lax Scholarship will further motivate him to remain an active contributor to the local LGBT community. “I want to always be involved in the LGBT community and be an activist,” he said. “I think it’s really important because we still have a lot of work to do. Even if we were to get marriage here, there’s still going to be further work to do for full equality, so there’s still a need for active involvement in the LGBT community.” Kelly, 29, is a native of Long Island, N.Y., and graduated from St. Joseph’s University in 2002 with an undergraduate degree in mathematics before earning his master’s degree in elementary education the following year from the University of Pennsylvania. Kelly taught math at a Philadelphia charter school and in suburban middle schools for several years, but last year made the leap from education to medicine and entered Drexel University College of Medicine.
“I loved working with kids, but as a math teacher it was kind of hard for me to get my creative side out,” Kelly said. “I had a great rapport with my students and with the schools, but I knew that I probably couldn’t retire doing just that.” Kelly, the president of Drexel’s chapter of LGBT People in Medicine and an active member of the Philadelphia Gay Men’s Chorus, is set to graduate in 2012 and said he may focus his studies on pediatrics or adolescent medicine. Kelly had to miss last week’s scholarship reception because he was attending the annual conference of the Gay and Lesbian Medical Association. Last year, Kelly conducted his primary-care practicum at the Mazzoni Center, working with Dr. Rob Winn, which he called an “eye-opening experience.” “I obviously know some of the specific things that gay men encounter, but I learned so much about the diversity of issues that the LGBT community faces — all the manifold lesbian health issues and working with trans patients was also something that was new to me,” Kelly said. “That’s a whole distinct area of healthcare that I think very few people know anything about and it’s not taught much, if at all, in curriculums.” Howland, 29, will graduate from the University of Pennsylvania Law School in the spring, after having completed undergraduate and graduate degrees from Hendrix College in Arkansas and the University of Arkansas, respectively. Although his master’s degree is in English, Howland said he decided to pursue a more practical path that’s “connected with the real world outside of the ivory tower.” Last year, Howland served as the co-chair of Penn’s LGBT organization Lambda Law, and under his direction the organization staged a panel on same-sex marriage with some of the nation’s leading experts on the subject, and hosted a discussion on the pending nondiscrimination legislation in Pennsylvania with local LGBT and civil-rights leaders. Howland participated in a summer program at Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher & Flom, LLP, in Delaware, and said his experience at the firm exemplified the overall positive environment he’s encountered in the field of law. “They were very welcoming and wanted everyone to succeed at practicing law. Having your family on board is a big part of that success because they also want you to do well and prosper, and at the firm they were very, very welcoming of my partner. I think he was almost more popular with them than I was,” Howland joked. He noted that the Lax Scholarship allows students like himself and the other four recipients to pursue their educational goals and use their successes as examples for future members of the LGBT community. “I think it’s a really important thing to be a good LGBT role model. That’s something that there aren’t too many of, and so people who are visible or activists within the community are very important. I thought I should try to be as visible as I could, and this scholarship allows me to do that.” Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].