The Dru Project: Queer Youth Scholarships

Sara Grossman is a seasoned veteran in the fight toward LGBTQ equality. As a founder and board member of The Dru Project, her passion for helping queer youth shines through when she talks about her organization. 

“The Dru Project is going to be in its fifth year this June,” she tells OFM. “We are starting to spread our wings even more, as we now have a presence not only in Colorado and Florida, but in Ohio, Indiana, and Kentucky.” 

One of the objectives of The Dru Project is to help support LGBTQ youth in rural areas who do not have access to the same type of acceptance and support that exists more prevalently in liberal, urban places. Sara explained that in Kentucky, a loophole was implemented for high school students who want to establish Gay-Straight Alliances. In order for a GSA to be formed, there needs to be a clear path for the students involved toward college. “It’s a way to get LGBT people out of those small towns and to where they are going to be more accepted and successful,” Sara explains. The Dru Project partnered with the organization Love Must Win in order to set aside scholarships specifically for these rural schools.

The Dru Project was established in 2016, after the shooting at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Christopher Andrew Leinonen was one of the victims and Grossman’s best friend. She remembers “dancing like idiots together at clubs” and recalls the time they tried to sneak into Disney World. As freshmen in college, Grossman says that Drew asked her to get them into a special high school seniors’ night at the theme park by having her lie her way inside, telling cast members that they lost their group. 

She smiles as she recalls panicking while Drew “laughed his ass off.” After Drew’s funeral, on her way back to Denver from Central Florida, she purchased the URL thedruproject.org not knowing what she was going to do with it. She felt the drive, however, to keep the spirit and legacy of her friend alive. About a month after Grossman established the URL, she received a phone call from another one of Drew’s friends. They had set up a 501c3 also titled The Dru Project. Grossman offered her talents with communications to Shawn Chaudhry and Brandon Wolf, and the board for The Dru Project was established. 

“We all decided the natural thing to do was to keep Drew’s legacy alive and make sure he wasn’t just another number, another victim of gun violence that we just forget about. We decided what we would do is give hope to queer youth through the production of our GSA guide and the distribution of scholarships,” Grossman says.

This June, Grossman and The Dru Project are raising money for their scholarships through a special event at the Left Hand Brewing Company in Longmont. There will be bands, drag performers, and the brewery is even building a bandshell and stage as well as painting a rainbow checkerboard on their parking lot for socially distanced tables. Can’t make it to the event on June 5? You can still grab a cold glass of DRUICY FRUIT!, a citrus beer that pays homage to Drew’s home state of Florida, throughout the entire month of June. Proceeds from the sale of the beer will go to The Dru Project and scholarships helping queer youth. 

“As we see our adversaries attacking queer youth, this work is more important than ever, and it’s on us to create the future for LGBTQ+ youth that we desired for ourselves,” Grossman explains. The Dru Project’s work continues to help knock down barriers for queer youth and helps to make the future brighter for the LGBTQ community.