CAVOD Club Holds Fundraiser in Honor of Pride Month

by Rebecca Bazini, SSLI '26

Since Wednesday, the CAVOD club has been holding a fundraiser in honor of Pride Month. The club’s presidents, junior and PPN editor Shir Levenson, junior Micah Bidner as well as club member and PPN staff writer Gavi Nitka handed out LGBTQIA+ awareness stickers, pins, and ribbons to celebrate and educate our Schechter community.

Pride Month is a time when members of the LGBTQIA+ community celebrate their identities. The month of June was officially declared “gay and lesbian pride” month by president Bill Clinton in 1999. President Barack Obama later included the rest of the community in 2011. Bidner shared, “It's just a month in the United States and around the world that we celebrate LGBTQ inclusivity and LGBTQ progress around the world.” Junior Emma Roth said, “I think Pride Month is a time to celebrate people who are part of the LGBTQ+ community and for people to feel safe as who they are and to celebrate their gender and sexual identities.” 

To honor this historic month, the CAVOD club celebrates annually by always giving out “Pride Month Goodies,” or stickers and pins with pronouns and Pride flags. CAVOD club advisor Pitt Stoller stated, “The CAVOD club, Connecting Allied Voices On Diversity, celebrates it [pride month] to honor and to create a safe space for members of the LGBTQIA+ community.” He continued, “CAVOD [club] strongly supports Pride Month because it's an opportunity to celebrate ourselves and the people in our lives who belong to the LGBTQ+ community. You don't have to be gay to appreciate Pride Month! It's all about appreciating and celebrating everybody in all their differences.” Roth remarked, “I think setting up the table with stickers and pins is a fun way to celebrate Pride Month and because it stays up all month, it serves as a reminder of pride and can make people feel more comfortable and confident.”

The flyer displayed for the CAVOD club fundraiser. (S. Levenson)

A way you can help support members of the LGBTQIA+ community is by being an ally. Nitka shared, “Just by being an ally, you can make them feel safe. You can just be a supporter and not put anyone down. Every act of kindness can make a day that much brighter.” 

Bidner also shared that another way to help, by donating to the Trevor Project, a not-profit organization which focuses on preventing suicide among LGBTQIA+ youth. He stated, “Donate to the Trevor project, which is a nonprofit [organization] that runs a suicide prevention hotline and just works to prevent suicide by LGBT youth because they have a higher percentage of suicide deaths, so we raise money for that.”

Pitt Stoller concluded, “There are charitable organizations that do important work to support LGBTQ+ youth, and I think that is very important, but the first way for everyone to support the community is just to be supportive and accepting of the people in their lives. We need more people to express out loud that they support everyone, regardless of sexual orientation and gender identity. When that is part of the public conversation, people feel safer being who they are. Then they may be one step closer to living an authentic life, loud and proud.”

Rebecca Bazini is a writer for Paw Print Now and has been published on the site since January 2023. Rebecca is currently a junior at the Schechter School of Long Island and can be reached at the following email address: rbazini26@schechterli.org.