Annual Report 2012-2013
What a wonderful and amazing year this has been. We are now in 7 schools, providing 13 groups weekly with an average of over 160 students attending every week. Capital High School is our newest school. Of course this means we are ordering a lot of pizza, about 50 a week, which adds up quickly. We were also contacted by the University of Washington’s School of Public Health, Quality of Life Department to see if jointly we can obtain a grant to study the effectiveness of Pizza Klatch in reducing bullying in the schools, reducing the number of suicides by LGBTQ youth and keeping youth in school so they graduate. We will be exploring this possibility over the next year.
We now have over 40 active volunteers who are facilitating groups, substitute facilitators, regular guest speakers, board members and event planners. This year, Pizza Klatch was thrilled to have 2 interns from the Evergreen State College. The interns helped update our data base, worked with Pizza Klatch youth to make a Zine, arranged a Pizza Klatch Karaoke Night for the youth, ran the auction portion of our “Out of the Silence” Art Show, and completely organized and updated our facilitators’ training manual. It was a fabulous experience all around.
Our “Out of the Silence” Art Show created and curated by calligrapher Sally Penley was a major success. It was shown over a six-month period in Olympia in the Urban Onion’s lobby, at the University of Washington’s School of Law for spring semester and then in the lobby of the Department of Transportation. Each art show opening was filled with school personnel, board members and superintendents, politicians, artists, LGBTQ community members and students. The art was then auctioned off and the project brought in $10,000 to Pizza Klatch. It also introduced scores of new people to our organization and brought people to tears through the profound and thought provoking art.
Our donor pool increased by almost 50% this year and we have schools begging us to start up Pizza Klatches at their schools too. This is partially thanks to the principals talking to one another about how effective the Pizza Klatch groups are.
