As Elijah Daniel (‘22) stood in front of the members of the Global Empowerment Movement (GEM) club, he fulfilled his role of being the LGBTQIA+ representative by giving an in-depth presentation filled with information on the different aspects of the community.

“I went over issues facing the community at this time such as the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill as well as other bills, I went over statistics as to how many of these people are represented in the population. I also went over the various groups that are in the LGBTQIA+ community,” Daniel said.

The motivation to run for this elected position was driven by Daniel’s personal emotions to spread awareness about the LGBTQIA+ community and the challenges they face.

“It was very important to run for a position to represent this community because I felt that I had recently become more open to being a part of that community and I wanted to use it as a way to further both the community’s goals and as simply a thing for myself,” Daniel said.

With an activity completed at each meeting, Daniel decided that the project would be to have the members of GEM donate to the Trevor Project, a nonprofit organization founded in 1998 that focuses their efforts on preventing suicide amongst LGBTQIA+ youth.

“I felt like it helped me more closely, like I was doing something for a community that not only I am a part of, but also just helping people in general is a nice thing to do,” Daniel said.

As a bright future lies ahead for Daniel, he plans on possibly making monetary donations to the community he identifies with, hoping that the message he spreads resonates with others.

“I want people to know that just like everyone else we are regular people and like any other group, we just want to live our lives and that we are normal people as well,” Daniel said.