June is Pride Month

June 2022 celebrates the 50th anniversary of the first Pride Day in Philadelphia that took place in 1972.

We would like to express our love, respect, and admiration for our LGBTQ+ friends, colleagues, neighbors, and family. Our foundation is proud of the diversity, history, community activism, allyship, leadership, and achievements of those who are affiliated with the LGBTQ+ community.

LGBQT+ people face different challenges and obstacles than others, especially pre-teens, adolescents and young adults.

Since 2016 Carole Landis Foundation has been supporting programs that advocate for survivors of sex trafficking, and have an agenda for legislation and public education. We have provided grants for Villanova University Charles Widger School of Law Institute to Address Commercial Sexual Exploitation and The Well safe house, and Worthwhile Wear, Bucks County.

LGBTQ YOUTH TRAFFICKING**

Often disconnected from family and friends, homeless kids are particularly susceptible to traffickers who will lure them with the promise of food, warmth, money, and even false love. Once seized from the streets without anyone noticing, they are sold for the highest price, with their self-respect and dignity and identity documents destroyed - until they are able to free themselves.

LGBTQ youth:

• Are 125% more likely to experience homelessness
• Make up 25% of young people who have been trafficked

26% of LGBTQ youth are rejected from their families, leading to:

• 33% chance of being recruited by a trafficker within 48 hours of leaving their homes
• 7.4 x more of a chance to experience acts of violence

56% of transgender youth are involved in the sex trade

We are currently considering grant-giving opportunities to other organizations that have a sex trafficking advocacy program.

** Statistics from Philadelphia Anti-Trafficking Coalition