Program: The Normal Anomaly Initiative
The Normal Anomaly Initiative began in 2016 in Houston as a blog to tell the stories of people at the margins. Throughout the span of 3 years, the Founder, Ian L. Haddock, had the organization working with Huffington Post, Unites States Conference on HIV/ AIDS (USCHA) and Prime Video. As the platform grew, the Founder had amassed a team of nontraditional activists that began to expand the trajectory in which the group was going. Touching their population through learning cohorts, development initiatives, HIV Testing, employment linkage, transportation, a thrift story and more, The Normal Anomaly Initiative is “Eliminating Barriers and Creating New Norms”.
Program: Health & Wellness
Omega House, a vital program of Avenue 360, has been providing quality, compassionate hospice care to men and women with HIV/AIDS, many from the LGBTQ community since 1986. As a community-based not-for-profit hospice, Omega House offers exceptional end-of-life care that is free of discrimination and judgment. We focus on the quality of life and symptom management to ensure patients spend their final days, weeks, or months as comfortably as possible.
Program: Dalton Dehart Photographic Foundation
The mission of the Dalton DeHart Photographic Foundation is to digitize, catalog and preserve an expanding collection of approximately one million photographs chronicling the Houston community, primarily nonprofit and community events, and to make these images accessible for their educational, historic, and cultural value.
Program: MEN INC MSM Mentoring Program
To mentor, educate and nurture young men from low to moderate income areas of Houston/Harris County within available resources allowed. We provide a safe space for young men of all backgrounds to specifically engage in supportive networking groups, mentoring groups and even community learning workshops. These spaces are created to ensure that same gender loving males have a safe and controlled environment to engage with other SGL and heterosexual males throughout their youth and into young adulthood.
Program: Youth Night
LGBTQ+ youth remain over-represented among youth experiencing homelessness, and yet Texas continues to be an extremely hostile environment for LGBTQ+ youth with many organizations feeling emboldened to refuse affirming services to youth experiencing homelessness. At Grace Place, we exist to provide young people of all sexualities and genders with an affirming and safe space to enjoy dinner, fellowship, and opportunity for growth.
Program: Hawthorne Dinner Program
Open Gate serves marginalized young adults—especially LGBTQ+ young adults—who are experiencing unstable housing; by providing a safe, stable community, we foster relationships to help address our participants’ short- and long-term needs. Open Gate’s programs and mission are secular, and Open Gate is not an evangelistic organization for Bering Church.
Program: Support for LGBTQ+ high school seniors/entering college freshman.
Pride Chorus Houston is an inclusive LGBTQ+ chorus where everyone has a safe place to make music and share a message of unity and peace. We strive to be voices of Pride, using the power of music to make a positive change in our community. We are proud to be one of the oldest LGBTQ+ choruses in the United States, making music for more than 40 years.
Program: Wellness Program 2023
For over 20 years, Lazarus House has been serving the LGBTQ+ community with an affordable opportunity for wellness in a stigma free, uplifting environment. Initially, Lazarus House’ clientele were HIV positive men, women, and children. Today our Wellness Program has expanded to empower peoples faced with the growing number of chronic health challenges where muscle loss may be a devastating collateral issue as seen in illnesses like HIV, cancer, stroke, MS, and spinal cord injury. Today as the LGBTQ+ population ages and health changes are realized, Lazarus House is able to provide a safe place for wellness to the community.
Program: Hatch Youth Services
Hatch Youth is dedicated to empowering LGBTQ adolescents, ages 13-20, to become responsible citizens and positive contributors to society by: Providing a safe, affirming social environment for LGBTQ youth; Providing education on health issues such as HIV, Sexually Transmitted Infections (STI’s) drug and alcohol abuse and suicide prevention; To host a variety of helpful and affirming programs for LGBTQ youth; Offering role models and peer support; Sponsoring educational and community outreach opportunities on issues and problems affecting LGBTQ youth for school counselors, teachers, administrators, mental health and medical professionals, social service, and law enforcement organizations.
Program: And Through Their Eyes Grow Thorns
The T.R.U.T.H. Project serves Houston’s LGBTQ+ communities of color of all ages and their allies. We create the space for them to come together to address holistic health and community stigma by way of community discussions, performance-based installments, group support circles, promotion of grassroots leadership, and public engagement.
Program: The Sandwich Program
The Brown Bag Lunch program successfully provides a bagged lunch to one hundred patients three days a week at this time. The Thomas Street Clinic is located in at residential neighborhood few food options in the area and none within walking distance. Many of the patients of the Clinic are on medicines that must be taken with food during the day. We function on a limited budget, depending solely on the generosity of donors to continue providing lunches for our patients. Bunnies on the Bayou made it possible for us to continue the Sandwich Program for another year.
Program: Houston Pride Band
The Houston Pride Band has a proud history spanning over four decades. Originally known as the Montrose Marching Band, the organization was formed by a small group of musicians in 1978 as a way to make new friends and to provide entertainment for Houston’s gay and lesbian community.