The Something Awesome Project

The SAP Graces the front page of The Mercurial

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:10:56 -0500

The SAP Graces the front page of The Mercurial

The Something Awesome Project’s Launch Party/Fundraiser is...

Sat, 22 Jan 2011 10:10:25 -0500

The Something Awesome Project’s Launch Party/Fundraiser is going down TONIGHT. Tonight. It’s here. AAAAAHHH! We are overflowing with excitement and cannot wait to share an amazing night with our friends, family and supporters.

Join us tonight, January 22, 2011 from 7-11PM at Two Steps Downtown Grille, located at 5 Ives Street in Danbury, CT. We can’t wait to see you there!

(If you haven’t already purchased your ticket online, you will be able to pay at the door).

What a better way to spend a Saturday than getting INKED with...

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:14:38 -0500

What a better way to spend a Saturday than getting INKED with The Something Awesome Project?! We held a Tattoo Party on Saturday, January 15th at Tattoo Mamma in Wingdale, New York and it was a great time! Amidst the buzzing of the needle was delicious food donated by Desert Moon Grille and Full Belly Deli (both in Danbury, CT), music and laughs!

THANK YOU to Nina (owner) and Alicia at Tattoo Mamma and more thank you’s to Nina for her generous donation!

The Something Awesome Project’s first GSA Connection was...

Thu, 20 Jan 2011 20:05:40 -0500

The Something Awesome Project’s first GSA Connection was such a BLAST! Were you there? AMiRIGHT OR AMiRIGHT?!

Our GSA Connection brings together students and faculty who are members and advisors, respectively, of their school’s Gay/Straight Alliance. Over 50 students and teachers attended, representing Danbury, New Fairfield, Newtown, New Milford and Bethel. Although Joel Barlow and Brookfield High Schools were not able to attend, we look forward to seeing them in the future!

The evening began with an introduction from Jes and me, after which, we turned the floor over to the advisors. Each advisor introduced themselves to the group and shared both the things they are currently doing in their GSA groups and the things they wanted to improve upon.

After their introductions, we allowed the advisors to break off into a group to discuss and share issues pertinent to their groups. We split the students in to groups of two, gave each person a piece of paper and a pencil and got ready to play “Silent Introductions.” Each student was asked to draw three or more things that were representative of their personality, but they were not to discuss their drawings with their partners. We then asked each pair to stand in front of the group and introduce their partner solely based on what the partner had drawn!

When Jes and I decided to play this activity, we thought it would be a fun way to get students to open up and learn about each other. We were overjoyed when the game had everyone laughing hysterically, joking with one another and forming new friendships! It was such a success and I know my cheeks/stomach/sides were aching from laughing so much!

We ended the evening with fun conversation over delicious wings, donated by Pippa’s in Danbury!

Everyone had a wonderful time and already couldn’t wait for the next event! The group’s unanimous decision was to have a potluck dinner, which we scheduled for January 13th. It was unfortunately postponed due to snow, but we look forward to having the event after the Launch Party!

xx Jaime

Newtown High School Principal blogs about The Something Awesome Project's GSA Connection!

Mon, 13 Dec 2010 23:09:55 -0500

Newtown High School Principal blogs about The Something Awesome Project's GSA Connection!

GSA Connection

Fri, 03 Dec 2010 00:55:36 -0500

The very first super duper extraordinary GSA Connection organized by The Something Awesome Project is happening. It’s a real thing. We’re excited.

Wednesday, December 8th at Danbury High School. Contact me (jaime[@]somethingawesome[dot]org) for further details (time and room). For some reason I’m nervous to put the details online. Is that crazy? I think I’m being protective of the GSA ducklings.

Food, games, activities, talking, feelings, thoughts, ideas, sharing.

Jes and I are obsesssiiied. daniprobably: my ridiculous NSYNC...

Sat, 20 Nov 2010 03:57:26 -0500

Jes and I are obsesssiiied.

daniprobably:

my ridiculous NSYNC cover. honestly.

The Ning Network Mentions The SAP!

Fri, 19 Nov 2010 11:55:02 -0500

The Ning Network Mentions The SAP!

The SAP on Reddit

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 11:08:00 -0500

The SAP on Reddit:

One of the students at a high school we visited yesterday took it upon herself to write this beautiful piece of something about our project on Reddit’s LGBT section. Now, I have no idea what Reddit even is, but we love her for it nonetheless.

From what I gather, I think you should sign up for Reddit (it takes a millisecond) and press the “UP” arrow next to the post, which will boost it’s position on the LGBT main page. The more people that see and learn about The SAP, the faster we can reach our goal of building a community center!

WCSU GSA SUPPORTS

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:54:00 -0500

Western Connecticut State University’s Gay/Straight Alliance held its 3rd annual Drag Show tonight and LET ME TELL YOU. I had so many feelings.

SO. MANY.

I walked in to the building, excited enough to see the show and then someone handed me a program. I opened it up and BAM!…

We were featured in the thing! My heart went loco and I thought, this can’t get any better! Now, I know you watch TV and movies and you know that when someone says something like that, things totally kept getting better.

The emcees for the night, Andy and Alex, spoke about our project in their opening segment, explaining that the GSA decided to donate half of the 50/50 raffle to our movement (HOW INCREDIBLE ARE THEY?!). It was incredible to have such exposure to a large audience and it solidified in my mind and heart that this is really becoming REAL.

And then the drag show was all sorts of stellar. Besides the incredible performances by WCSU students, there were two professional Queens and a professional King whose stage shows were crazy good! A girl sitting near me had an identity crisis right before my eyes because she developed a fast crush on the King, whom she thought was actually a male!

“Noooooo,” she gasped in disbelief when someone broke the news to her.
“Fuck it!” She exclaimed. He’s hot! Crisis averted.

And then and thenn anddd thennn!!! 50/50 raffle time came and the gentleman who won offered to donate his winnings to The SAP!

I still believe, in spite of everything, that people are truly good at heart.

Thank you WCSU GSA. Thank you SO big.

Wow High School Must Be Super Awesome If You’re Not Gay

Wed, 17 Nov 2010 00:31:24 -0500

Wow High School Must Be Super Awesome If You’re Not Gay:

autostraddle:

Students at St. Charles North High School wore “Straight Pride” tshirts to school last week. But it’s fair because that’s just the other side of the argument you start by wearing gay pride tshirts…

What's the nicest thing someone's ever done for you?

Tue, 16 Nov 2010 23:12:06 -0500

The WCSU Gay/Straight Alliance gave us our first donation—proceeds from their 3rd annual Drag Show to The SAP <3. Over-freakin-joyed.

Ask us anything

WTF

Mon, 15 Nov 2010 00:23:31 -0500

Okay, I have always been pretty adept with technology and internet things, but I swear this stuff is about to start flying over my head. There are too many THINGGGS! I need to tweet on twitter, talk on tumblr, fumble around on facebook… and and anndd and it all makes me feel like my head is going to explode.

TOO MANY THINGS.

The beginning. Jes and I met but a few months ago and were...

Thu, 04 Nov 2010 11:14:00 -0400

The beginning.

Jes and I met but a few months ago and were somehow drawn to each other—we chalk it up to divine intervention. Whatever it was, we quickly became friends and started expressing to one another our dreams of doing something bigger/better/cooler/more important/more inspiring/more everything than what we were doing at the time.

These days, whether it is in person, on the phone, on the Facebook chat, via Skype or through ESP, we connect every day, sharing our enthusiastic ideas and plans for The Something Awesome Project. After months of talking and researching and brainstorming and stressing and changing and fixing and amending and the highs and the lows, we became clear about our mission, values and goals: we were going to do something awesome for the gay community. After that, we had to ensure that other people knew about our movement and were able to learn about it and interact with us with and others interested in the work we want to do. Thus, the website was born.

AND THEN THERE WAS LIGHT.

So here we are, two chicks trying to start a movement. We’re learning as we go, learning as we grow, growing as we learn and we couldn’t be more thrilled about the present and future of this project.

We were hoping to submit our idea to the Pepsi Refresh Project this month so that a cool $250K would fall on our laps, propelling our ideas forward, but apparently everyone else in America had that idea, too. The millisecond I got on to the website to send our application, the 1,000 available spots were FILLED! So I drank a 6-pack of Coke.

Kidding, really. We were bummed, but we’ll try again next month. In the mean time, we plan to start orchestrating events for adolescents/teens as well as for adults so that we can a) have some fun and b) make some money to help fund the programs we wish to implement.

That’s where we are today and we hope you’ll join us for the ride to see where tomorrow takes us…

xx Jaime

Who We Are...

Thu, 21 Oct 2010 15:34:00 -0400

The Something Awesome Project is a movement dedicated to providing a safe, positive and supportive space for GLBTQ youth and their allies. The Project exists to bring queer and questioning youth together, pair them with positive mentors and offer scholarships for higher education. We strive to empower our youth with the tools to do something awesome every day.

Our vision is, naturally, to create something awesome for GLBTQ adolescents. The three pillars of The Something Awesome Project include:

Somewhere Awesome Youth Connection provides youth a place where they can hang out, interact and connect with peers based on common traits and interests, form friendships and develop lasting bonds, learn and grow from each other, offer support to one another and enjoy activities together.
Someone Awesome Youth Mentoring pairs GLBTQ youth with positive and influential GLBTQ role models.
The Something Awesome Scholarship Fund provides a monetary award to GLBTQ high school graduates pursuing higher education.

We believe:

That everyone deserves to be treated with equal levels of respect
That a tolerant society improves the quality of life for all
That everyone has the right to be someone awesome
That everyone should have access to the resources to do something awesome

Visit our website (somethingawesome.org) to learn more about us and to join our dynamic social network of people devoted to being someone awesome and doing something awesome.