The UP Center of Champaign County is becoming Uniting Pride, a name that describes its purpose while recalling its founding. Youth Coordinator Zev Alexander said before the UP Center started 10 years ago, LGBTQ+ support and rights groups were fragmented in the community. “What is amazing about Uniting Pride is we are called that because 10 years ago that is what our community needed the most. There was a PFLAG chapter, a church support group, a marriage equality group, but there wasn’t a place that held them all. There also wasn’t a pride parade. That was our founding point: how to unite pride and bring it all together.”
In the last 10 years, the non-profit created the largest Pride Fest in downstate Illinois. Support groups for adults and teens have been running for years, and now organizations around the county go to them for LGBTQ+ 101 trainings. With a three-year strategic plan, they’re “promising that it’s backed up by some real organizational scaffolding that will allow us to remain sustainable for the decade to come.”
Uniting Pride in 2020 is working in a different cultural and legal setting than at its start, and Alexander said the board’s intention here is to stay financially and emotionally viable. “This has been a decade of incredible people working really hard to make Uniting Pride happen year to year. We want the next decade to be about people doing the right amount of work, volunteer, board, and staff. Everyone sharing that load.”
“We hold this simultaneous deep gratitude to the generation that came before us while looking forward and recognizing that we can’t do more Prides like this. Pride Fest is so big now! We had 10,000 people show up to Pride. That parade was organized by four volunteer board members, and a handful of people that came in day of.” They said while that’s incredible, it’s not healthy or sustainable.
In the strategic plan Uniting Pride is looking forward to having an independent Pride Fest committee that reports to the board. “We’re going to get so many more perspectives this way; a broader vision of what Pride can look like,” said Alexander. The plan is to pair the volunteer committee with its own treasurer and independent budget. Pride Fest’s revenue will fund Uniting Pride’s ability to be the go-to community hub for references, referrals, and information throughout the year.
“There is so much growth that we need to do,” he said. “The first thing you can do is to share our Facebook page, get a friend to sign up for the newsletter, and donate $3 for our three year plan, or $20 for 2020. That will help us have a staff member here in the office that can answer the phone when someone calls in crisis. Help us regularly give trainings to medical and service providers so can say, ‘Here are the therapists, practitioners, the homeless service providers, the educators that we trust and working relationships with.’”
Image: A white tailgate tent with rainbow stripes at the top. It says www.unitingpride.org on the two visible edges. A rainbow flag is hanging from the tent, and there is a blue, purple, and pink striped flag on the opposite side. Several people are gathered around a table. Photo from Uniting Pride Facebook page.
He encourages anyone interested in joining the Pride Fest committee or becoming the interim treasurer to sign up through their Committed Volunteer Interest Form. “Every single time I’ve asked someone on a one-on-one level to help with something with Uniting Pride I’ve never seen a moment of hesitation,” said Alexander. “People really want to help us. I made a post that the kids at youth group wanted guest speakers, and I got 20 emails saying, ‘I’m a successful queer adult, YES!’ When we say we need help at Pride, people turn up. People in this community want to pick up garbage at Pride Fest. There’s so much enthusiasm.”
Right now Alexander is the only paid staff member at Uniting Pride. “I’m most excited about bringing on more staff. But that’s just me. It’s lonely down here,” they joked. “Technically my job is making sure our youth program functions on the day-to-day.” What he ends up doing is a lot more.
They’ve hired a new Program Administrator starting this week to keep their new calendar running, send out their monthly newsletter, maintain social media, and check-in support group facilitators. “If that doesn’t take up all their hours, which it might, they’ll do some events coordination to take some of the load off the board, and start working on Pink Pages,” he said.
Pink Pages is a local LGBTQ+-friendly business referral and directory that has fallen out of date. “You’re going to see a place where you can go and know that this business, this service provider gets trained regularly and has Uniting Pride’s stamp of approval.”
They’re also looking forward to creating more trainings in the community with the help of a committee. “Right now it’s just been one of our board members, Jasmine Routon, who is an excellent educator, taking on any of the trainings that we get requested,” Alexander said. Uniting Pride is wanting the committee to give regular LGBTQ+ trainings to organizations in the Pink Pages.
By the end of the year they’re hoping to have a list of volunteers to call on for tasks big and small. Alexander said they’re looking to have a few new support groups for adults, “Because the only staffed program is the youth program, it’s been really hard to keep our adult support groups afloat. While a volunteer can always facilitate them, volunteers come and go, and we need a staff person to hold it down.”
“I’ll continue to do that work on youth program,” he said. The added staff and volunteer support has Alexander looking forward to more. “That will open me up to be able to do young adult support groups and tween group, which is what I really want to be doing with my time. Because boy, those tweens! They need a group!”
No matter what is added or changed in this decade, Alexander said he wants everyone to know the deep respect he has for the founders and Uniting Pride’s history. “It’s not to erase their legacy, it’s about making sure that it lasts.”