Eagle County Gender and Sexuality Alliance receives $10,000 grant from LGBTQ+ empowerment organization
Grant funding will aid creating more inclusive policies and access within schools, and a fun year-end celebration through Queer Prom.
Madison Partridge/Courtesy photo
A Gender and Sexuality alliance in an Eagle County school received a $10,000 grant to enact a student-driven plan to make schools safer and happier for LGBTQ+ students.
The grant comes from It Gets Better, a nonprofit that uplifts, empowers and connects LGBTQ+ people around the world through storytelling initiatives. The funding is part of It Gets Better’s 50 states, 50 grants, 5,000 voices grant initiative, the organization’s largest, designed to provide LGBTQ+ youth with resources to make their schools a comfortable, joyful place for themselves.
Student members of the Gender and Sexuality Alliance applied for the grant last year in partnership with Mountain Pride, an Eagle County-based nonprofit founded in 2022 to improve the LGBTQ+ community and allies’ experience in the mountains of Colorado. Eagle County is the only It Gets Better grant recipient in Colorado out of the 25 grantees this year and the third Colorado recipient in the three years the grant has been offered.
Mads Partridge, the executive director of Mountain Pride said receiving the grant was “so exciting.”
“The students were stoked,” Partridge said. “I think it really shows them that their voices matter and that Mountain Pride, It Gets Better, and Eagle County want to raise up their voices and show that they have power and can create an impact. We can take this money and do some powerful work to impact not just on our space, but the culture of the school.”
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Why are Gender and Sexuality Alliances important in schools?
There are several Gender and Sexuality Alliances in middle and high schools throughout the Eagle County School District, all of which are “student-led and Mountain Pride supported,” Partridge said. “The pillars of Mountain Pride’s work are community, education, advocacy, and resources, and so we worked with the student leaders, educators, counselors, and the school district to help support or build these student groups in the schools.”
The clubs provide a safe space for LGBTQ+ students, featuring student-led activities that range from fun events to discussions about issues affecting them in school and life, offering students a platform to advocate and have their voices heard.
“At every GSA in Eagle County, the main goal is to make it a safer place for kids,” said Liam Dunn, a senior at Eagle Valley High School and co-leader of the school’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance.
“You hear so many experiences from … LGBTQ+ youth at school, and just how much it can affect one’s mental health, how much it can affect people’s education,” Dunn said. “This is a place of education, and sadly, LGBTQ+ youth go through every day handling discrimination, which is something that shouldn’t happen, but GSA … is a place where kids can get together to find community, to find a sense of belonging.”
Upon hearing about the grant, “I was so happy, because this opens up so many doors to things that we can do to benefit our school,” Dunn said.
Working with students has been “incredible. These students are so energized and they make me want to be a better person and to live in an authentic way as many of them show up,” Partridge said. “The reality is, they can show up in this way, but there’s still bullying, there’s still pushback about having a GSA and being openly out. So it’s really a catch-22 of this powerful authenticity, but then this reality of what still happens in schools.”
“(Students) want spaces where they can truly be themselves free from bullying and harassment and where their peers can thrive in school. What’s so exciting about this It Gets Better grant is that it shows the students that people believe in their ability for change to create a better environment in our schools,” Partridge said. “With this grant, we can support these youth-led initiatives as they raise their voices, advocate for teacher education and safe spaces, and celebrate all of it in the same effort. It’s been amazing to witness.”
How do students plan to put the It Gets Better grant into action?
In applying for the It Gets Better grant, students wanted “to make school a better place for our LGBTQ+ youth here,” Dunn said.
Their grant application included three specific goals: Teacher education on the experience of LGBTQ+ students, more inclusive policies and access within schools, and a fun year-end celebration through Queer Prom.
The teacher education element will include LGBTQ+ student-driven content about how incidents such as bullying, misuse of pronouns, and misunderstanding of their identity impact them, and how teachers can intervene on behalf of students being bullied.
“Our teachers do so much in the classroom, and it’s so incredible, and they have to show up for every student, and showing up for every student is also understanding the experiences of the students,” Partridge said.
“There are some teachers that can be disrespectful, but they just don’t really understand,” Dunn said.
While some schools, like Eagle Valley High School, already have gender-neutral bathrooms, they are not always easily accessible to every student. Some of the grant funds are already going to increase access to these restrooms for the students who need it.
“There are a lot of kids who find it really important to have gender-neutral bathrooms because they can be afraid to go into either bathroom because of the bullying that can come along with that,” Dunn said.
The Queer Prom, which is open to all Eagle County high schoolers, is both a dance with fun activities and serves as a space for LGBTQ+ youth to come together and meet others who are like them, “and have that safe place of being who you are and not being judged,” Dunn said.
Eagle County School District supports students’ school improvement efforts
While the school district has consistently supported the Gender and Sexuality Alliances, anti-LGBTQ+ rhetoric is not unheard of in Eagle County, and Partridge is prepared for backlash as students implement their action plan in schools.
“I definitely see there being pushback. Ever since Mountain Pride has been an organization, we’ve received pushback from saying we shouldn’t be here, we shouldn’t be working with youth in our schools. We’ve had school board meetings to town council meetings where we continue to hear this,” Partridge said. “But the district supports LGBTQ+ youth in our schools. They support them having GSAs and being able to use their voice.”
“We are happy to see our students demonstrate initiative, compete for a national grant, and secure $10,000,” said Phil Qualman, Eagle County School District superintendent. “We believe it’s important for students to develop independence and leadership skills, and this grant award shows they are moving in that direction.”
For students, the grant provides the opportunity to influence their school culture in a way that makes their own lives, and those of incoming LGBTQ+ students, better. Receiving the grant “makes me an even more proud student to be able to come to school in a school that we are influencing a change in,” Dunn said. “I’m proud of every single person in GSA; we made this happen, we really worked together to make that change. And it makes it a safer place for me included. … It leaves me a little bit more rest knowing that we are taking steps so kids feel safe at school.”
