The following is a post from Rachel Greenough, a member of the Community Outreach Committee and the Rose City Riveters Steering Committee.

Happy Pride, everyone! It means so much to me to announce that the 107IST will be collecting donations for the community in person this month, and that our Pride Month collection will support Outside In. To add a little extra hype, we will have donation merit badges available for folks who drop donations at Fanladen on match days! Please see below for details, and check in on social media for match day information — plans are evolving quickly and we’ll do our best to keep information current. Update: Fanladen will be open before all Thorns and Timbers home matches in June!

Here are some details of what you can do to support our community during Pride month:

1. Pledge to a Prideraiser! The Rose City Riveters are supporting Outside In,  and the Timbers Army are supporting TransActive. Pledge to one or both, with amounts as low as $1/goal or as high as you want!

2. Bring material donations for Outside In on home match days for both teams! Please bring new items only, including: socks (larger sizes), underwear, toothbrushes, deodorant, sunscreen (travel size), chapstick, reusable water bottles, and shorts (size M+). Check the newsletter and social media for fanladen open hours before matches.

3. If you’re out of the area, you can also donate to Outside In via their Amazon wishlist. If you wish to receive a donation merit badge, send a screenshot of your receipt to community@107ist.org with the subject “Donation merit badge” and your mailing address. We ask that you only use this option if you can’t get your badge in-person at Fanladen.

4. Buy Pride merch items from RivetGear and No Pity Originals! A new item (and some from past years) are available now, both online and at the Fanladen before thorns matches. This year's pride item benefits The Living Room, an organization that supports and celebrates LGBTQ+ youth in Clackamas County.

5. Keep watching the 107IST channels for more.

So why, specifically, is Outside In our chosen recipient for the Riveters Prideraiser and the 107IST donation drive in Pride Month? Outside In has been here for as long as I can remember. In fact, they’ve been operating in Portland since 1968. They provide medical and other services for anyone who needs them, but their roots are in service to the youth of Portland — providing shelter, medical care, job training, food, and so many other needed services to young people. About 20 to 40% of the youth experiencing houselessness in this country identify as LGBTQ. Trans youth, in particular, find themselves at incredible risk of violence and harm if they are on their own, and the gender-affirming medical and other care provided by Outside In is one important way to support these young people. We need to stand up in support of trans and queer youth — and Outside In has always done that.

This Pride Month, we'll do our best to actively support our LGBTQ+ community members. In particular, we recognize that legislation targeting trans individuals is on the rise across the country, and violence toward trans individuals has already taken too many lives this year, including in our own state. We also recognize that intersectionality means that the overlapping aspects of an individual’s identity might make them more susceptible to inequality, discrimination, violence, and harm.

Please feel free to send things our way or help the community engage further with these topics.