CENTRAL FLORIDA’S MOST EFFECTIVE LOCAL LGBTQ ORGANIZATION
Zebra Coalition embodies every bit of their 2018 WAVE Award title as the most effective local LGBTQ organization. They have a very simple and direct mission—support and inspire LGBTQ+ youth—and they have been very effective in doing so.
“It’s such an important mission,” says Heather Wilkie, Zebra’s Executive Director. “We serve LGBTQ+ youth here. We provide housing services, mental health counseling support and really wrap-around all-around services for the youth here in Central Florida. I think it’s a critical service and clearly the community agrees.”
So many politicians, groups and organizations use the phrase “think of the children” when pushing an agenda. Zebra doesn’t just think of the children, they are the children.
Zebra Coalition has an LGBTQ+ Youth Council, a committee of Central Florida youth ages 13-24, who provide safe, healthy and supportive spaces and activities for youth to hang out with their friends. There are currently nine active youth members in the Youth Council, and meetings are on a weekly basis at the Youth Center.
There are hundreds of individual stories that have come from Zebra Coalition, some of which have been featured in the pages of Watermark, like the story of Peter Ruiz.
Ruiz was a high school student whose adoptive mother kicked him out of her house when he came out to her. His high school sent him to Zebra Coalition.
“They immediately had a place for me to stay. They helped me through the process of getting clothes, getting school supplies, they helped me to get food stamps so I could feed myself, all those basic things I needed to survive,” Ruiz said to Watermark in 2015.
It’s these stories that show the community how effective Zebra Coalition truly is and why it is no surprise that they are Central Florida’s most effective local LGBTQ organization.
