The Delaware Valley Legacy Fund distributed a total of $30,000 at a party Oct. 5 to six regional organizations addressing emerging needs for the LGBT community. Each received $5,000.
Requests to fund programs and services for LGBT youth and transgender people were especially popular this year, said Samantha Giusti, DVLF executive director.
“There are a lot more mainstream, or non-LGBT-specific organizations coming in also with LGBT programs they’d like to develop,” Giusti added. “They’ve created a niche for LGBT programs. I appreciate that people are seeing we’re just a subset of the larger communities they serve.”
Giusti said the local trends she and her team have noticed line up with the national trends.
The first-time grant winners include:
• Camden Area Health Education Center, a public-health department in New Jersey, to fund counseling services for transgender people of color.
• Support Center for Child Advocates, a volunteer lawyer program in Center City, to fund legal guidance for LGBT youth in the dependency-court system. The primary reasons for referral are child abuse, sexual abuse and serious neglect, according to the center.
• Jewish Family and Children’s Services of Greater Philadelphia, to pilot a program on coaching and community building for LGBT older adults.
Return grant winners are:
• ActionAIDS, to fund medical case management for LGBT older adults.
• The Attic Youth Center, for career-readiness programming.
• Valley Youth House, to support “Pride Housing,” which helps LGBTs ages 18-21 with short-term rental assistance, case management and workshops on housing, life skills, employment and education goals.
Organizations interested in the next Emerging Needs grant cycle can email [email protected]. Giusti said those organizations will be added to an email list for when the notification about application deadlines goes out late spring. The grantmaking process takes about three months, she said.