Our Center has lost two major federal funding sources, totaling a loss of more than $1 million for some of its programs.
The nonprofit organization is now forced to look for funding sources elsewhere.
The funding losses will mostly impact the work that the organization does out in the community.
Our Center's services at its location near midtown will still be available, but they will have cut some programming they find significant in four main areas.
"The Trump administration has come up with some objectives for their budget, which does not include funding any LGBTQ prevention," said Stacey Spain, Executive Director, Our Center. "And so, all of the work that we were doing to do alcohol, drug, suicide, and mental health work with LGBTQ youth has been defunded."
The first source that was cut was the Partnership for Success Grant. It was going to bring $240,000 a year for the next four years.Â
The grant supports suicide prevention, mental health, anti-vaping, and prescription drug prevention programs.
Another source was from the Substance Use Prevention, Treatment, and Recovery Services (SUPTRS) Block Grant. That was going to bring almost $130,000. It centered around alcohol, marijuana, and nicotine prevention.
"The wonderful thing about prevention is if we can get kids in that kind of upstream prevention model to not ever start those kinds of behaviors, that's going to have a great impact for their health and their ability to be, you know, a part of our community," Spain said.
Despite the loss, Our Center says they will be doing whatever it takes to help.
"So, what we're going to do is, and we are doing that right now, is putting out that call to the community, to private foundations, and to community funders to try to bridge the gap between what we have lost and what we need to continue to do the work and the mission of the organization," Spain said.
If you would like to help the organization, they accept donations here.
