Celebrating 5 years of pflag in the south bay!

 

The Manhattan Beach/South Bay chapter of PFLAG was formed on the belief that every member of the LGBTQIA+ community and their families should have easy access to support and services and that our culture in the South Bay should be one that celebrates the unique identity of every individual.  

The Manhattan Beach/South Bay PFLAG chapter was officially incorporated on August 14, 2018, and held its first monthly support group meeting on October 2, 2018. Since then, we have also expanded our offerings to more directly support the Transgender + Gender Expansive Community. This meeting focuses on issues of particular relevance to the gender expansive, non-binary, and transgender community and their families and is held Virtually on the Third Wednesday of every month. To see our upcoming meeting and event schedule, please click here.

After 5 years (and counting) of doing this work, we were more than ready to celebrate with our South Bay LGBTQIA+ Community and our cherished allies. YOU ALL have been instrumental to our success and we wanted to commemorate this special occasion together. On November 3rd, we came together and connected with our local community of peers, allies, and comrades. The evening was full of hugs, laughter, smiles, and tears of joy. We were so thankful to be able to honor some of our PFLAG Heros that evening. We truly couldn’t have made it this far without them.

PFLAG MANHATTAN BEACH/SOUTH BAY 5 YEAR HERO AWARD RECIPIENTS

Back in November 2018, just a few months after we launched, we were sitting around thinking of fundraising opportunities…Cindy, Tina and I had finished our work with PFLAG National and we’d become a recognized chapter….But we had no funding and needed to get cracking on strategies that would help put some money in the bank account. Our PFLAG co-founder and Mama Bear Tina Sarafa suggested we launch a "SHOP FOR A CAUSE" event. The holidays were just around the corner and everyone had started their shopping, so Tina suggested we find a local store who would be interested in donating a percentage of sales on a particular shopping day to PFLAG. Since Tina and her friends all shopped at Gum Tree in Manhattan and Hermosa Beach, she reached out to Lori Ford to see if she would be open to supporting a "SHOP FOR A CAUSE" event. Lori was immediately enthusiastic – even though we were already bumping up to a very busy time of year and her promotions calendar was already full of events… Lori made it happen – within a few days she had a flier created and was promoting the event. Her generosity and positive reception gave us inspiration to make "SHOP FOR A CAUSE" an annual undertaking…and she has been a huge supporter of our event every year, actively working with the Manhattan Beach Chamber and Downtown Business Association to bring other local businesses on board to participate. Last year our "SHOP FOR A CAUSE" Event grew to include 24 businesses participating as donors and 8 businesses participating as sponsors. We really owe our local fund-raising effort to the vision, enthusiasm, and warm embrace of Lori Ford who helped us see that it’s okay to ask for help. Through her actions, we came to learn that our community would generously respond to support PFLAG and our South Bay LGBTQ residents and families. Lori is indeed a PFLAG hero! — Linda K. Reeves - PFLAG Chapter Board Member + Co-Founder

Back in September 2018 we embarked on our marketing efforts to announce our new chapter. We knew finding community stakeholders that shared our vision of support for LGBTQ residents and families was critical to building a foundation that would advance our visibility and growth. As a local psychotherapist, I was a member of the Beach Cities Health District’s Adolescent Mental Health Task Force, and had come to respect the creativity, enthusiasm and community engagement that was exemplified by Beach Cities Health District’s team members Ali Steward, Shana Martinez, Diane Garcia, Jade McKnight, Emory Chen, Kerianne Lawson, and their fearless leader CEO Tom Blakely. I humbly reached out with a press release and a flier and asked them to help us market our first PFLAG meeting. They responded with a genuine understanding of our mission and the challenges inherent in educating and bringing people together to partake of the support group and other services we were offering. Beach Cities Health District has been truly instrumental in our success by including PFLAG in dozens of community events, and providing us with a meeting space for our Gender Support meetings – prior to Covid. Our Gender Support meetings are currently being conducted using Zoom. Through the years Beach Cities has participated in our "Shop For A Cause" event as a contributing sponsor and we have grown our partnership with LGBTQ themed events working with Amanda Verwys at the Beach Cities Allcove Center. We are truly grateful for this successful partnership and look forward to many more years of collaboration and support. I wish we had one of these for everyone I mentioned, as each of those folks have played an important part. You are a PFLAG HERO! — Linda K. Reeves - PFLAG Chapter Board Member + Co-Founder

I have always said that our superpower derives from the partnerships and networks we are creating among our community members and allies here in the South Bay. Our relationship with Lily Craig and Chevron is a testament to that power of community. Our chapter had just held its first two meetings when I got a call from Lily, who was responsible for diversity programming at Chevron. She had seen the notices about the first "Shop for a Cause" fundraiser at Lori Ford’s GumTree shops and she said – “Are you official yet? Are you a 501(c)(3) that can receive donations?!” If you know Lily, she is an exuberant, positive force of nature -- She was thrilled when I confirmed that we were. She told me she had some extra money to give away by the end of the year and if I wrote a request, Chevron would donate. That’s how Chevron became our first and largest corporate donor to our chapter. And, as you probably know, once you have one committed donor – other companies are willing to jump on board. The first is always the hardest to secure. Since then, our relationship with Chevron has continued and grown. We’ve presented at Chevron Pride events every year since then. Just this year, we were part of a presentation focusing on efforts to roll back rights for trans people. Chevron employees and our own Kathryn shared powerful stories about the impacts of those efforts. Chevron continues to be a influential and powerful partner for us, giving us a forum and continuing to build the network of support within our community. — Cindy Byrne - PFLAG Chapter President + Co-Founder

Alphonzo Hicks taught us everything we know about bringing the bling, getting the word out within our local LGBTQ+ community. As the president of the South Bay LGBTQ+ Center he has a long history within this South Bay community, which he so generously offered to introduce us to when we founded our chapter. He was a supporter from the very earliest days of our chapter and he served on our first board of directors. His introductions, insights and historical knowledge have been absolutely critical in laying the foundation for our PFLAG chapter. As a local non-profit, we do a lot of “tabling events” – something Alphonzo needed to introduce us to – he invited us to join the Center at our first few events to introduce ourselves to various parts of the community. I remember showing up with a stack of very staid somber looking printed materials provided by PFLAG National -important brochures on topics like “what to do when your child comes out to you” I offered to help Alphonzo get things out of his car and when he opened the back hatch, it was like a gay party store had exploded in the parking lot. He had pride flags, bracelets, stickers, pens, buttons – and when I saw the rainbow packaged condoms, I knew we were going to have to up our tabling game if we were ever going to attract attention at these events. Now I can proudly say that our table is always the most active and vibrant, surrounded by hordes of young people attracted by our bubble machine, our wings, our multitude of LGBTQ+ themed stickers and pronoun pins. They just appreciate and revel in the LGBTQ+ visibility that we are bringing to every event. That’s all a long way of saying that Alphonzo helped to show us how to be seen and visible and how to make an impact in our community and beyond in so many ways. We are forever grateful for his mentoring and our continuing work with the Center – Thank You Alphonzo! — Cindy Byrne - PFLAG Chapter President

Joe Pezley works for Kinecta Federal Credit Union and is an out and proud member of our community. Joe somehow, miraculously, found us just a few years ago. He and several members of Kinecta's Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion Council came to our General Support meeting for the first time. Although Joe had not experienced PFLAG growing up, he quickly understood the purpose and importance of what we do. Joe was quick to ask what he and Kinecta could do to support our efforts. We have been off and running since. With Joe's steadfast support:

  • Kinecta has become one of our lead sponsors for our annual South Bay Pride celebration

  • Multiple times Kinecta has sent their ice cream truck to PFLAG family events

  • After realizing that we both march in the Long Beach Pride parade, Joe spearheaded a joint Kinecta –PFLAG pride float entry this year. Between our groups we had at least 50 people marching in the parade.

  • Kinecta employees joined PFLAG in marching in this year's St. Patrick's Day Parade; PFLAG was invited to speak to Kinecta's Prism LGBTQ employee resource group; and, Kinecta helped rally attendance at the city of Redondo Beach's historical first pride flag raising.

We love you, Joe, and thank you and Kinecta for being PFLAG heroes! — Frank Hanzel - PFLAG Chapter Board Member

Common Space Brewery has been an exemplary ally, not just to PFLAG Manhattan Beach, but to the entire South Bay LGBTQ+ community. From the progress flags and pride stickers, to the kindness of the staff, it is explicitly clear that all are welcome at this brewery. Common Space continues to walk the walk with their partnership with us through several major initiatives including the Cosmic Kiki donation, several Pride parties, a Prom, and through corporate sponsorship. We are thrilled that an inclusive and fun space exists like this and we are so grateful for all that Common Space has done to support us financially and to promote our visibility. — Crystal Segura - PFLAG Chapter Board Member

Shawna V. (Vibrant Humxn) is the person who keeps our chapter hip, cool, current, and on top of things. She is our tech guru, she creates amazing, marketing tools, and generates new ideas for each event and meeting we have. The public face that our chapter gets to market (approved by PFLAG HQ of course) is Shawna's work. We are grateful for her initiative, her skills, the perfect dose of professionalism, fun, and enthusiasm that she brings to all she does. Thanks, Shawna! — Isabelle Royer - PFLAG Chapter Board Member