(Photo courtesy Sara Grossman)
ORLANDO | The Dru Project will be marking its final, last-ever fundraiser, The Final Transmission, on June 13 at Anthem Orlando.
Darcel Stevens will host the night with performances by Allegra D, Orusha Santiago and special guest Sapphira Cristál. There will be drag shows and a raffle to round out the evening.
The advocacy organization and nonprofit was founded by Board President Sara Grossman and others, including Brandon Wolf, in honor of Pulse victim Christopher Andrew Leinonen. Following a decade of honoring Leinonen, the nonprofit will distribute all remaining funds directly to LGBTQ+ scholars and will not operate in future years.
Grossman attended the University of Central Florida with Leinonen, where they met the first week of classes. She says it’s a privilege to honor Leinonen and the other angels through The Dru Project.
Although the nonprofit will be signing off this year, Grossman says the message and organization lives on with the relationships they have built.
“Everything we’ve done for 10 years, every scholarship, every celebration, every life we’ve touched, is still out there moving through the world,” Grossman shares. “The Final Transmission is our way of saying: we sent everything we had.”
The nonprofit distributed over $250,000 in scholarships, an accomplishment Grossman says will never really settle in. She says that alone shows the power of friendship, community and connection.
She says for a decade, The Dru Project has pushed anguish into action and pain into promise. It raised funds for a permanent memorial mural at UCF, which will be on the walls of Leinonen’s alma mater for many years to come.
“We wanted a title that honored the fact that this isn’t a goodbye to Drew or the 49 — it’s a goodbye to us as an organization,” she shares. “The message lives on; we’re just signing off.”
For more information, visit AnthemOrlando.com.
Read more about the 10-year mark of Pulse in our current issue, available digitally here and on newsstands through June 17.
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