By Russell Etherton
For those who don’t know, October is LGBTQ History Month—a win for the Gay Agenda as we attempt to take over the year one month at a time. To honor this auspicious observance, which includes National Coming Out Day (October 11), Spectrum South is taking a moment to look at some of the organizations that help our community thrive.
When the time came, I decided to leave the Bluegrass State, the great Commonwealth of Kentucky, and move to Houston, deep in the Lone Star State. Those 11 years ago, I came in search of, among other things, my LGBTQ community—or if nothing else, a proper Pride parade and a decent drag show. But what I found was a community full of organizations hell bent on maintaining the vibrancy of the rainbow flag we all wave.
Meet Alan Prewitt, co-founder and board president for Lambda NextGen, a social networking group in Houston that brings LGBTQ young professionals together to connect, mingle, and strengthen their roots within the local community. I sat down with Prewitt a few weeks ago to talk more about what Lamba is doing to remain responsive to the community it serves. “We started five years ago,” Prewitt explains. “Thirty-five people showed up from a Facebook invite. It was intended to be a different kind of happy hour. Come to this event, try an icebreaker, get to know others in your community, and have a drink.”
Today, Lambda NextGen events are well–known within the young professional community. Most notable is the group’s original happy hour, which occurs on the fourth Tuesday of every month. “In five years, those happy hours have gotten almost unmanageable in size,” Prewitt says. “[We went] from the original 35 [attendees] to over 300 at our January event this year. Logistically, that creates a lot of problems for a volunteer team trying to coordinate and the bars trying to host. It has gotten to be a lot.” While attendance was impressive, the board began to question whether or not these crowds were truly serving the organization’s mission. “We kind of got the reputation that our events were a drinking party and a face-to-face Grindr,” Prewitt shares. “You’d have a couple hundred people, mostly men, show up to find a partner for life or for the night. That wasn’t the goal of Lambda.”
Over the last year, however, Lambda has hosted regular board retreats to help tackle this issue. New board members were brought on to help inject new life, new ideas, and structure into the organization. “Our aim was, of course, to provide social opportunities for our members, but also to support our members’ interests in having a positive impact within the larger LGBTQ community here in Houston,” Prewitt says. “That became our driving charge.”
So, they tried something new. “We added a commitment to ‘being a member,’ a $25 membership fee per year,” Prewitt says. “[This creates] an investment in the growth of the organization and a filter for those who were just there for the free drink.” He notes that those who found value in the organization’s mission stayed. “For $25, you get entrance into four sponsored happy hours a year,” he says. “Suddenly, attendance went down by a lot—down to 50 or 100 people, and it made the connecting and networking with like–minded people possible again.”
Lambda has also added auxiliary events to their monthly happy hours in the hopes of furthering the social impact component of their mission. “We did an OKRA setup in December to fundraise for three nonprofits that the board felt were doing great work in the community: SPRY (Seniors Preparing for Rainbow Years), Save Our Sisters United, and Montrose Grace Place. It turned out to be a huge success. That’s when we knew we were onto something,” Prewitt says. “People wanted to feel like Lambda was more than just a happy hour, something with purpose.” Additionally, a Lambda Ladies group was created specifically to foster networking opportunities for self-identified women within the organization, and community service events are hosted throughout the year.
“I stay on the board because I believe in the work,” Prewitt says. “I believe that Lambda NextGen can be a conduit for some great things in our community. I’d like to see more people get involved with the board and the planning of outreach events. We see some returning faces over and over again, and the hope is to foster leadership opportunities for them.”
“It’s not enough to just want to see change,” Prewitt says at the end of our conversation. “Change happens because someone decides that ‘how things are’ isn’t good enough anymore. And for me, I came to Houston and needed a community. From that, Lambda was created. Imagine what other great things could happen when a few decide that ‘how things are’ needs to change.”
For more information on Lambda NextGen, visit lambdanextgen.com or follow the organization on Facebook and Instagram.
