Organizational Ally to Queer Youth – Awardee:
SANTA CRUZ COMMUNITY HEALTH (SCCH) | Awardee
Founded in 1974 by UCSC students dedicated to social justice and health care as a human right, Santa Cruz Community Health (SCCH) began as the Santa Cruz Women’s Health Collective. For over five decades, SCCH has met the evolving needs of the community, deepening its impact by expanding the breadth and depth of its services and increasing its locations, with clinics in Santa Cruz, Live Oak and Ben Lomond, and providing behavioral health services in all schools within the Live Oak School District and Harbor High. Today, SCCH serves nearly 14,000 people of all genders and is committed to providing a safe, welcoming, and affirming environment where everyone, including trans youth, can access the care they need, when they need it. In the face of ongoing challenges and external pressures that threaten the well-being and rights of gender-diverse individuals, their team remains unwavering in supporting all patients with compassionate, patient-centered care. Their leadership, providers, and staff continue to advocate for the health and dignity of every person in our community, ensuring that inclusive and affirming care remains available to those who need it. Santa Cruz Community Health stands with the LGBTQIA2S+ youth of Santa Cruz County.
Organizational Ally to Queer Youth – Nominees:
CABRILLO COLLEGE RAINBOW COUNCIL | Nominee
The Cabrillo College Rainbow Council comprises LGBTQIA2S+ and allied students, faculty, staff, administrators, and trustees dedicated to improving queer visibility, access, equity, and success across Santa Cruz County. Since its inception in 2020, The Rainbow Council has added to Cabrillo Library’s collection of books, periodicals, and films; advocated for the inclusion of historic and contemporary issues in curricula; established faculty and staff professional development workshops; and initiated visibility campaigns throughout the college. They also participate in community initiatives like the Santa Cruz and Pajaro Valley Prides and planned annual school events including Queer Prom, Lavender Graduation, and Trans Day of Remembrance. The Rainbow Council collaborates with Cabrillo’s Gender and Sexuality Alliance (GSA) Club to sponsor tables at the Queer Youth Leadership Awards and the Safe Schools Project Student Summit and has worked with the Cabrillo Office of Student Equity and Success and the County Office of Education to establish the 2025 Educators Symposium. For last year’s Queer, Trans, and Allied Student Summit, The Rainbow Council also reached out to Cabrillo’s student-led Printmaking Club to provide free tote bags filled with swag and hand-printed with a custom logo designed by one of the summit’s youth artists.
LAKEVIEW MIDDLE SCHOOL QUEER-STRAIGHT ALLIANCE (QSA) | Nominee
The longest continuous middle school Gender & Sexuality Alliance Club in PVUSD, Lakeview Middle School QSA has supported hundreds of LGBTQIA2S+ and allied youth, educated fellow students and staff, hosted community events, and had a positive impact on the school’s climate and culture. Lakeview QSA is a leader in the Watsonville community, organizing and inspiring other middle schools to start GSA clubs. During the pan- demic, they collaborated with other local students to combine virtual GSA meetings and, when the Pajaro River flooding forced Pajaro Valley Middle School to relocate to Lakeview for over a year, Lakeview QSA welcomed the Pajaro Love With Pride Club, combining their meetings and uniting queer youth and allies from both schools. Lakeview QSA recently celebrated their tenth anniversary, organizing a big party and bringing together students, QSA alumni, current and former Lakeview staff, The Diversity Center staff, and other community allies. They’ve also helped organize and host the Queer, Trans and Allied Student Summit and the first annual Understanding Gender summit for parents, educators, and adult allies. Lakeview has led by example in PVUSD, bravely flying the pride flag every day despite parent complaints, and inspiring other middle schools to stand up for queer, trans, and gender diverse students.
RAINBOW DEFENSE COALITION OF SANTA CRUZ COUNTY
& THE PAJARO VALLEY | Nominee
The Rainbow Defense Coalition (RDC) is an all-volunteer organization founded in 2023 to keep the first Watsonville Drag Story Time event safe from hate, discrimination, and protesters. Armed with rainbow flags and umbrellas, the RDC demonstrates queer joy while creating a festive, joyful, and safe atmosphere for those attending community events. The coalition provides ongoing training for volunteers, ensuring they know how to initiate nonviolent communication, de-escalate volatile situations, and defend themselves from harm. With over one-hundred and fifty trained volunteers, the RDC has supported local social justice organizations and responded to over forty LGBTQIA2S+ community events including Drag Story Time, Pride events, Glitter Kids Camp, Queer Prom, Understanding Gender Summit, and The Rainbow Conference. The brigades are free-of-charge and a sustainable response to anti-LGBTQ+ hate in our community. A documentary film about the first Drag Story Time and the origins of RDC was featured in the 2024 Watsonville Film Festival, showcasing the RDC’s fearless use of empathy, inclusion, and joy to defend queer youth and organizations from hate.
RENEGADE THEATER CO. | Nominee
Now in its third season, Renegade Theater Co. is a welcoming and safe environment for marginalized groups including queer, trans, gender diverse neurodivergent, and low-income theater kids to thrive. Prior Queer Youth Leadership Awardee and now Renegade Theater’s artistic director, Kyle Vasquez, creates a space where queer youth can shine and give back to the queer community. When non-binary, Oklahoma teen Nex Benedict died, Renegade took the initiative to perform a reading of The Laramie Project to raise funds for Nex’s family and the TransFamilies’ Understanding Gender Summit. They’ve continued to perform one Pride benefit show a year, donating half the funds to support LGBTQ+ and gender diverse youth, and, after the tragic death of a beloved production member, established a scholarship so trans and queer teens facing financial difficulties could still attend Renegade Theater. Renegade also hosts the Rainbow Choir — a mixed-voice choral ensemble for teen singers who self identify as intersex, genderqueer, non-binary, or LGBTQIA+ — and they’ve collaborated with the Seven Directions Creative Learning Center to establish Friday Night LGBTQIA+ Teen Hangouts. From hosting workshops and theater camps to performing queer-centric shows and fundraisers, Renegade has had a vibrant and positive impact not only on the youth participants but on the whole community.
YOUTH EMPOWERMENT & ACTION FOR HEALTH (YEAH!) | Nominee
Youth Empowerment and Action for Health! (YEAH!) is a unit within Santa Cruz County Public Health that works to improve the health and well-being of young people and those who support them through youth-adult partnership, collaboration, and coalition-building. YEAH’s teams, including Teen Health Outreach (THO), Thriving Youth and Community (TYC), Impaired Driving Prevention, and Friday Night Live (FNL), partner to provide support and educational services for youth across Santa Cruz County. FNL’s collaboration with The Diversity Center culminated in the Queer Middle School Improvement Team, a middle school youth council for queer and allied youth, as well as a SOGIE training initiative for parents, educators and youth serving professionals through the Community Prevention Partners Coalition. Local FNL chapters have included youth-led hate speech prevention projects. YEAH! supports clinics, provides inclusive training, and ensures community surveys follow current SOGIE guidelines so LGBTQIA2S+ data collection is accurate and respectful. As the 2022 Organizational Ally to Queer Youth Awardee, their THO team has provided bilingual, comprehensive, medically-accurate, and inclusive sex education for middle and high school students, a sepa – rate parent and adult education courses, and partnered with the Student Summit to offer sessions on Healthy Relationships and Consent .
