The recipients of Long Beach Pride Scholarships make an investment in their community

BY ERIC ROSEN

When you mention Long Beach Pride, people immediately think of the great parade they put on every summer (now in its 25th year), and the long afternoon of merrymaking spent down by the ocean. But Long Beach Pride has so many more facets than that, and one of the most important ways they promote LGBT awareness in Long Beach is through their many community programs.

One of those programs, the annual Pride Scholarships, provides financial support to deserving LGBT students pursuing higher education who either live in Long Beach or are studying there. Just last year, scholarships totaling $5000 were awarded to five deserving students to help pay their tuition at Long Beach area schools.

The scholarship program was started about 15 years ago to “assist college students with attaining their higher education while promoting leadership in the Long Beach community through literary, educational, and charitable activities,” according to Long Beach Pride’s official literature. Applicants must prove they are enrolled at an accredited institution, and must have a cumulative GPA of 2.8 or higher.

Co-chair of the Long Beach Grant Programs, Julie Brown, further explains, “In a nutshell, the program is designed to encourage gay, lesbian, and transgender youth to obtain a higher education in the hope that they will become the leadership of tomorrow in our community.”

Education, after all, is about shaping one’s future, so it is natural that a program like the Pride Scholarships is geared toward young people whom the Pride organization hopes will become the future leaders of the gay community.

But as Brown says, the scholarships are also meant to be a catalyst in the students’ present lives. “Our hope would be that while the recipients finish their education, they become active members of our organization, role models in the community, and spokespersons on behalf of the organization [who] show people that, though we put on a great festival, we also give back to the community in a meaningful way.”

When he applied for the first of two Pride Scholarships in 2006, Aaron Moore, 27, was already participating in AIDS Walk Long Beach, and was a member of the Long Beach Police Chief’s Advisory Group. “A lot of consideration for the scholarship is about how you’re involved and giving back, and are you a member of the community that Pride wants to support in terms of your further education,” Moore asserts.

Discussing the second time he applied for a Pride Scholarship, however, Moore says, “I felt that pursuing my Masters in public administration was an important degree in itself—regardless of community participation—because whether someone is gay or straight, it’s important to have good people carrying out public policy, so it was important to me that Pride supported my studies in that.”

Involvement is not necessarily limited to the Long Beach gay community either, says Joe Treter, 22, who is working towards a product design marketing degree at Cal State Long Beach. “Currently, I volunteer at San Diego pride, where I’m originally from, and where I continue to volunteer every year.”

But obviously the focus is on how recipients participate in the Long Beach community, since it is home both to the students receiving financial aid, as well as their benefactors. And while activism is not an overt requirement for recipients of the scholarships, many find that it becomes a big part of their lives anyway.

Mark Norris, a 43-year-old social work major at Cal State Los Angeles, says, “To be one of the leaders or persons in the forefront in the gay movement is very important to me. And over the years, as I’ve been involved with community activities and kept an eye on Long Beach Pride, I’ve become more political and learned to fight for gay rights. Being a part of the community has definitely sparked that type of passion in me.”

He seems to have encapsulated the subject of the application essay very neatly. The essays asks applicants to talk about how supporting their continuing education also helps to further the goals of Long Beach Pride, which include awareness, community activism, and instilling a sense of pride in the gay community.

The scholarship application also requires three letters of recommendation, at least one of which is from an academic source, which raises some interesting questions about how the applicants bring up their homosexuality with would-be references, however, none of the recipients we interviewed seemed to have any difficulties with this issue. In fact, Treter says, “I actually got quite a lot of support through my advising faculty when I applied for the scholarship, especially those who wrote the recommendations for me. That was interesting because some of them didn’t know I was gay before that. Not that I hide it, but [I] don’t wear a rainbow on my shoulder even though I have a lot of pride and [came] out a few years prior.”

Clearly, it is how Pride Scholarship applicants face such situations that will determine whether they are indeed deserving of aid from Long Beach Pride.

Moore explains the responsibility of accepting such aid. “Receiving the scholarship is like a vote of confidence from Pride that you are a good person in the community. It is like they are saying, ‘We think you’ll do good things, you’re a good investment. You are studying public service, and we want to be involved in that.’ They chose to invest in me and saw that it would be a payoff to have a better-educated public servant that [will also] do things that will be good for the community.”

And in Moore’s case, the investment has been sizeable since he has received scholarships for the past two years. As Moore puts it, “Long Beach Pride has paid for about a year of school for me—or a third of my master’s degree—which was really amazing.”

Asked how receiving the Pride Scholarship has changed their lives, the three students offer a variety of responses, which somehow struck a familiar note.

Moore replies, “For me, it wasn’t a matter of changing my life or really influencing me one way or another, rather, it enabled me to do what I really wanted to do. That was what was great about the scholarship.”

Treter echoes Moore’s sentiment, “The scholarship didn’t change me, it enhanced and encouraged me to continue with my education. It’s become my purpose in life to better our community. After I graduate, I want to help those I personally can in the community, and make an impact that way.”

For his part, Norris, who has always dreamed of a career counseling others in need, “hopes to open up drop-in homeless shelters that are specifically designed for troubled and homeless LGBT youth.”

All worthy goals for the future, but Brown sums up the real point of the scholarship program. “In the end,” she says, “we want our recipients to be happy. They participated in the program and … give back to the community in some way as a result.”

It seems safe to say that, no matter what else the Pride Scholarship recipients achieve in the future, they have all certainly fulfilled that vision of the program’s purpose.

For more visit on Long Beach Pride grants and to apply visit www.longbeachpride.com.