Beyond The Bridge

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Beyond the Bridge is a community of people committed to supporting LGBTQ youth through fundraising, connecting youth to resources, and creating more affirming spaces in their families, schools, and places of worship.

Glow BTB - History

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ABOUT BTB - History

The community now known as Beyond the Bridge arose out of a community activism event in October of 2010. Take Back the Bridge was a prayer vigil and march across the Aurora Bridge in Seattle, co-sponsored by the Seattle/King County Crisis Clinic and a conservative Christian ministry. The goal of the event was to build awareness for suicide prevention, raise funds for the Seattle/King County Crisis Clinic, and heal the community through prayer. When BTB founders Stacey Prince and Teri Mayo approached the ministry about LGBTQ individuals participating in the march, we were told that our issue was peripheral and that perhaps this event was not for us. Especially in light of the spate of LGBTQ youth suicides in the news in the Fall of 2010, not only do we know that LGBTQ issues are not peripheral to suicide, but we also felt that we needed to have a strong presence of LGBTQ individuals and our allies at the event.

In just under 4 days, organizers Stacey and Teri with the help of several supportive friends gathered marchers, printed t-shirts and information sheets, and spread the word via word of mouth and social networking. On October 9, 2010 forty individuals in Take Back the Bridge... for Everyone rainbow t-shirts attended the church rally and then marched the bridge. We walked alongside congregants, handing out information cards and discussing the challenges facing LGBTQ youth. With our peaceful protest we believe we added to, rather than detracting from, the important message of the day.

You can read about Take Back the Bridge... for Everyone and see some of the news and social networking coverage from the day here.

Therapeutic Justice Project blog Part I

Antechamber Collective blog article

Mixtape Communications blog article

Therapeutic Justice Project blog Part II

Peacable Kindom blog article

King 5 News article and video

After the event we met with the Executive Director of the Crisis Clinic in order to elaborate on why we thought their choice of partnering with a conservative, evangelical ministry might send the wrong message to LGBTQ individuals who are in despair and who might need their services. We also continued to network with community leaders and organizations who work in the areas of LGBTQ youth suicide prevention, anti-bullying curricula, and affirming faith communities. We wanted to galvanize the energy, support and enthusiasm that Take Back the Bridge... for Everyone had created into a more sustained effort to address the issues facing LGBTQ youth. We wanted to go Beyond the Bridge.

To tell the truth is to become beautiful, to begin to love yourself, value yourself. And that's political, in its most profound way.

-June Jordan

BTB - Now

We wanted to go Beyond the Bridge and create a sustained community effort to address the issues facing LGBTQ youth. Rather than recreate the wheel, we know that there are many organizations in King County that are already actively and effectively helping LGBTQ youth, and we want to ensure that they have the funds they need to continue this work. Therefore we have established an Area of Interest Fund through the Pride Foundation. Please see our Donate page to learn more.

Our secondary goal is to create a clearinghouse of resources relevant to LGBTQ youth, especially in the areas of suicide prevention, anti-bullying, and finding affirming faith communities. See our Resources page and please feel free to contact us if you know of a resource you don't see listed here.

A third goal is to sponsor community events that will raise awareness about LGBTQ youth suicide risk and support local organizations who are doing this work. Please check back with our Events page where we will post these as they develop.

Grant Recipients

2011-12 GRANT

RECIPIENTS

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Safe Schools Coalition
Youth Suicide Prevention - OUTLoud
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Want to know more?

Click on their name to go to each

recipient's website!

Page 1

GENDER ODYSSEY

$2,000 to produce and distribute materials describing their support groups, trainings, and advocacy, all focused on the issues facing transgender youth, adults and their families. While many are aware of their nationally recognized conferences for gender non-conforming individuals and their families, increasing outreach and awareness of these other invaluable services has the potential to change and save lives.

Safe Schools Coalition

SAFE SCHOOLS COALITION

$2,000 to bring their outstanding trainings addressing bias based bullying to Seattle middle schools. Trainings include youth panelists and focus on bullying based on real or perceived sexual orientation, gender expression, ethnicity, religion, and disability.

Youth Suicide Prevention - OUTLoud

Youth Suicide prevention/

OUTloud

$2,500 to continue their work to help students, educators, agencies and service providers understand the links between bullying and suicide and how to intervene effectively. Project goals include providing several free trainings each month to educators and providers, youth peer-to-peer presentations, and developing a toolkit to help reduce bias based bullying.

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GOOD SAMARITAN / QUEER YOUTH IN EAST PIERCE COUNTY

$2,000 for mental health professional to travel to rural communities to assess needs of queer youth who are often much more isolated and have less access to resources than their urban peers. It is hoped that information gathered from this needs assessment will lead to funding of services for rural LGBTQ youth.

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RETEACHING GENDER AND SEXUALITY

$2,500 to continue their innovative program of multimedia presentations that offer fresh perspectives and stimulate engaged discussions on gender expression and sexual orientation. BTB funds will support their Spring Tour, which will bring their work to thousands of students and on-line viewers.

Donate

In order to support organizations in King County that are working with LGBTQ youth, we have established an Area of Interest Fund through the Pride Foundation. Our goal is to fund organizations that:

reach out directly to LGBTQ youth to let them know of resources that can help them,

create strategies and curricula to reduce bullying in schools,

develop programs to reduce messages of intolerance from faith communities, increase youth resilience in the face of such messages, and help youth find affirming faith communities,

increase awareness of LGBTQ youth suicide risk factors and working to reduce such risk.

The Area of Interest Fund allows us to direct funds to projects and organizations, and also gives us the flexibility to change where funds are directed as time goes on. If we hear about a new group doing innovative work or if there is a community event that would benefit from one-time support, we can make that happen.

Our initial goal is to raise $5,000 by June of 2011 . Once we reach our goal we will start disbursing funds to groups that are focusing on the above projects. BTB Founders Teri Mayo and Stacey Prince will be the primary decision makers but we welcome input from all of you, and will also be receiving the expert advice and guidance of the Pride Foundation staff. If you know of a project that you think is right up our alley that we might not have heard about, please drop us an email!

We firmly believe this is the best way we can support LGBTQ youth in King County and create a place where all youth feel valued and see a viable future for themselves.