LGBT Resource Center receives third Arcus grant
GVL Archive The LGBT Center received the Arcus Grant for the third consecutive year, and it will continue to help fund programs like the Change U: Social Justice as well as additional funding for other LGBT Resource Center-related projects
Nov 7, 2011
For the third time, Grand Valley State University’s LGBT Resource Center was awarded a $150,000 grant from the Arcus Foundation.
The $150,000 “Building Community, Empowering the Movement” grant will be used during the next two academic years. The Kalamazoo-based foundation provides money to empower students to create change for the LGBTQ community in Grand Rapids.
The center also received the grant in January 2010, one of 138 grants worth a total of $16 million the foundation awarded that year. Funds from the Arcus grant have supported several projects for the LGBT Resource Center, including their co-sponsorship of the documentary “A People’s History of the LGBTQ Community in Grand Rapids” and the social justice training program Change U, now entering its second year.
Colette Seguin Beighley, director of the LGBT Resource Center, said the programs such as Change U that the Arcus grant supports focus on educating and mobilizing the community.
“The purpose of Change U training is to provide students, faculty, staff and community members with concrete skills to build a strong interconnected justice movement in West Michigan,” she said. “This training will examine intersecting systems oppression and focus on connecting students to local justice movements.”
Registration for Change U, a four-month training program that begins in January, is open at www.gvsu.edu/socialjustice.
The grant also provides money for staff and students to attend conferences and money for the center to continue to respond to anti-gay activity in the community.
