QAPA Has Pride

The Boston Pride Community Fund supports local grassroots non-profits

By Binh Le, with contributions by Boston Pride

In 2015, Boston Pride instituted a new program, the Community Fund. The Fund is intended as a way of giving back to the community with monetary grants expressly designated to support the work of small, local grassroots non-profits. A portion of the proceeds from the entry donations at the block parties have constituted the principal source of income for the Fund. This year, the monies collected from the High Heel Dash for Charity (see page 22) will also be earmarked for grants. So by coming out and joining in the Pride Week festivities, LGBTQ folk and allies are, in effect, helping to empower local advocacy and service organizations in the work they do in behalf of the queer community, and especially marginalized or underserved populations.

2016 saw the awarding of the first round of grants, totaling over $17,000, to 11 different organizations, most of which serve youth and communities of color. Among the first recipients of the Boston Pride Community Fund is Queer Asian Pacific-Islander Alliance (QAPA). Founded in 1979, QAPA is the oldest LGBTQIA+ pan-Asian organization in the United States. QAPA is committed to providing a supportive social, political, and educational environment for lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, and questioning people of Asian and Pacific Islander heritage in the Boston and New England area. Over the past three decades, QAPA has remained a local grassroots communitybased stakeholder – out of which Massachusetts Asian + Pacific Islanders for Health (MAP for Health) was established in 1993.

As QAPA is completely run by volunteers, we have been grateful for the support of the Boston Pride Community Fund, which helped us to promote our community advocacy and programs. The following outlines some of the highlights of what our organization accomplished in 2016, thanks in part to the support of the Community Fund:

Community Catalyst Awards Celebration

QAPA collaborated with National Queer Asian Pacific Islander Alliance (NQAPIA) to host the Community Catalyst Awards Celebration on March 24, 2016. We took a moment to honor Amit Dixit and our 37 years of former QAPA Steering Committee members for their efforts in enhancing the visibility of, civic engagement with, and advocacy for the pan-Asian LGBTQI+ community.

Over 240 community members attended much more than we expected. We also signed and delivered nearly 250 postcards in support of the Massachusetts Transgender Public Accommodations Bill. For entertainment, we had special performances by the powerful all women Japanese Taiko Drumming troupe of Genki Spark, and drag

QAPA honors Amit Dixit. Credit: Corky Lee.

In 2017, Boston Pride has disbursed over $20,000 in Community Fund Grants to 16 small nonprofits around the Bay State. The recipients of this year’s grants and their funded projects include:

Boston Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, to commemorate the organization’s fifth anniversary with a free and open party celebrating the community and its victories and accomplishments

Greater Boston Chapter of COLAGE People with LGBTQ + Parents or Guardians, to offer social justice workshops for youth leaders from LGBTQ-parented households as well as one designed for queer parents

Hebrew Senior Life Chaplaincy, Inc., to conduct a study on the impact and efficacy of the organization’s LGBT elder training on staff care

The History Project, to organize a public event during Pride Week on the history and evolution of the Pride movement

HKS Francophile Club, to defray the cost of organizing a Franco-American symposium on the topic of diversity and inclusion

Impact Boston, for scholarships for low-income LGBTQ individuals to enroll in an organization-led course on self defense

Imperial Court of MA, for the promotion of the organization and recruitment of new members with the creation of a new website and new banners and printed materials

Lesbians of Color Symposium Collective, Inc., to support educational workshops and networking opportunities for queer women of color at the fifth-annual Symposium

Madfemme Pride, for the rental of a fully-equipped wheelchair-accessible meeting space for all book club meetings in 2017

Mystic LGBTQ + Youth Support Network (Queer Mystic), to offer a diverse slate of programming in multiple venues to enhance outreach and engagement with queer youth in and around Arlington

Paws New England, to provide veterinary care and rehabilitation for shelter animals with critical needs

SpeakOut Boston, to support the Transgender and Gender Non-conforming Speaker Program and its efforts to educate the community about the upcoming referendum on the Transgender Accommodations Law

The List: Boston Queer Agenda, for the development of a fee for service advertising arm to maintain the List as a free service to the community

Theatre Offensive, to support the youth of True Colors Troupe during their touring production “OUT In Space”

Worcester Pride, to finance the production of the annual Pride Festival and the publication of the Worcester Pride Guide

Youth Queer Straight Alliance of Greater Middleboro, for transportation to Pride events and the circulation of outreach materials to queer youth in the community

Congratulations On Another Successful Boston Pride Event

Timothy P. McCarthy Boston City Councilor District 5 mccarthy4boston.com 617-635-4210

What You See Outside Your Front Door Is Important To Us

One of the ads run in NQAPIA’s Asian Family Acceptance Campaign Credit: NQAPIA.

As QAPA is completely run by volunteers, we have been grateful for the support of the Boston Pride Community Fund, which helped us to promote our community advocacy and programs.

performances by Ms. Prodigy and Yune Neptune; all of which inspired great pride in our community and cultural traditions.

The Community Catalyst Awards Celebration was a smashing success, as we ended up raising over $7,000 to support both QAPA and NQAPIA.

#RedefineSecurity Week of Action

On May 10, 2016, QAPA hosted a #RedefineSecurity event with Asian American Resource Workshop (AARW), NAPAWF (National Asian Pacific American Women’s Forum) Boston, and NQAPIA. The objective of the event was to amplify many LGBTQ APIs’ experiences of policing, profiling, and deportation. #RedefineSecurity challenged participants to create art or other media to bring awareness to the plight of so many in our community, and to resist the policies that persist to persecute us.

Family Acceptance Workshop

QAPA hosted the NQAPIA Asian Family Acceptance Workshop Tour on September 24, 2016. With the funds raised from the Community Catalyst Awards, we provided this free workshop to offer guidance and support to the parents of LGBTQIA+ Asian American, South Asian, Southeast Asian, and API children. The parents facilitating the workshops were involved in NQAPIA’s landmark Asian Family Acceptance Campaign, a series of emotionally moving TV ads entitled “Family Is Still Family”. The ads ran nationally throughout the month of June 2016.

The 2017 Round of Funding

As the work of our community continues, so too does the Boston Pride Community Fund. To that end, Boston Pride is #wickedproud to announce that in 2017, in the second round of the Community Fund, more than $20,000 in grants have been distributed to 16 non-profits around the Bay State (for more information, see the sidebar on page 149). Applications for the third round of grants is expected to open in Fall 2017; sign up for the Boston Pride Newsletter (www.bostonpride.org/news) to receive further updates on the Community Fund and other programs of the organization.

Binh Le has served on the steering committee for Queer Asian Pacific-Islander Alliance (QAPA) since March 2012. In her professional life, she is a data analyst.

Participants in the Boston #RedefineSecurity workshop. Credit: Sasha W.