HeartStrong uses FBB support to help persecuted GLBT students

Fourth-quarter 2011 children’s beneficiary HeartStrong gave us this report about how they are using the funds contributed by members of Foundation Beyond Belief. Members donated $4,065 to HeartStrong last quarter.

As a beneficiary of FBB’s Q4 2011 funding, HeartStrong is using the funds raised for its Youth Empowerment Project. HeartStrong is an all-volunteer organization and is the only GLBT nonprofit organization founded and administrated by humanists and atheists. Our core mission is to provide hope and help to GLBT students persecuted in religious educational institution and educating an ill-informed public of the legalized bullying in said institutions. HeartStrong is not a religious organization, allowing our outreach and educational programs to reach students placed in just about every type of religious school imaginable.

Recent studies have revealed that 25% of youth who are found out to be gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender by their parents are thrown out of their homes. It is estimated that as many as 80% of those young people are on the street because of their parents’ religious beliefs.

HeartStrong’s Youth Empowerment Project is a five-year project providing humanist-based educator’s resource guides at no charge to every public, private, and religious school counselor in the United States. The project also equips students in any school with outreach materials at no charge for peer-to-peer outreach. The project will cost approximately $50,000. With FBB’s funding, HeartStrong has begun implementing many parts of this project. More than 15,000 pieces of free outreach materials have already been distributed to students around the United States. Volunteers are compiling the first ever comprehensive contact list of school counselors. Thanks to FBB and its supporters, a CD package has been designed for counselors who are unable to receive the guide via email.

Given the response we have already received from counselors in the United States and several other countries, we anticipate an expansion of the project after the initial five-year project.

The recent funding from FBB and its supporters helps HeartStrong raise the banner of hope for these young men and women, illuminating the path to self-acceptance, self-love, and a life worth living.

Marc Adams
Founder/Executive Director