A new fund has been created in Portage County to provide support for local LGBTQ+ students in the wake of the move by Kent State University to close its LGBTQ+ Center.
Janice Simmons-Mortimer, executive director of the Portage Foundation, said the local nonprofit launched the new LGBTQ+ Fund after hearing in late June about Kent State closing three affinity-based student support centers in response to Senate Bill 1. That bill, which went into effect at the end of June, requires public colleges and universities to end all diversity, equity and inclusion programs. Other schools in the state like Ohio University and Ohio State University closed their LGBTQ+ and multicultural centers earlier this year in response to the law.
Simmons-Mortimer said she's fielded concerns from many community members who considered the LGBTQ+ Center a vital place for support.
"The (LGBTQ+) Center at Kent State, while it had programming specific to students, it was a welcoming space and open space for anyone in the Portage County community to go in, to be able to participate in the different programs," Simmons-Mortimer said. "And so folks wanted that as well. They wanted to know that there might be a resource to be able to help with programming for the community at large."
She said the fund will seed support programs in the county for LGBTQ+ students and local residents, and will attempt to replicate a program at Kent State's LGBTQ+ Center that provided emergency assistance to students.
"The center would assist students with emergency crisis grants," Simmons-Mortimer explained. "If a student gets kicked out of their home, if the student was having issues not having food to eat, they would approach the LGBTQ center to have just small cash assistance."
The Portage Foundation's LGBTQ+ Fund, officially launched about a week ago, has raised about $1,000 so far, Simmons-Mortimer said. The fund will be available to students at all colleges in the county, and to Portage County students who attend college in surrounding counties as well. The Portage Foundation is still seeking community members to make up an advisory board to make decisions on how best to use the funds.
Simmons-Mortimer said local residents advocating for creation of the fund, along with donations flowing in, shows how caring the community is.
"It's about community members reaching out to us saying there's a need there and a community foundation responding to that need by creating the buckets, the tools for folks to be able to support to help meet that need," she said. "We do that with animal welfare, we do that with veterans, we do that with food insecurity, housing insecurity. This is very similar to that."
Kent State University has previously said it remains committed to supporting "all students" despite closing the centers. The university in early June said the physical spaces that formerly housed the multicultural, women's and LGBTQ+ centers will remain open as general support spaces for students.
