Sara touched so many lives during her 42 years on this earth, and as a result, I was contacted the day of Sara’s death about setting up a scholarship in her name through Out Boulder County, an LGBTQ+ education, support, and advocacy organization based in Boulder, CO that Sara volunteered for, and was passionate about. She was supposed to start working with them in the fall of 2019 as part of her MSW program.
The Sara Thompson Magical Mermaid Scholarship was born. This scholarship is intended to grant funds to LGBTQ+ identified people looking to improve their life, their community, or the greater world and funds can be granted for educational assistance or other types of projects. Sara loved working with both youth and older adults, so it was very important to me that the scholarship be able to benefit both populations. We’ve granted scholarships to a total of ten individuals in 2020 and 2021, and are planning on annual scholarship awards in the March/April/March timeframe each year for as long as we have enough community support to keep the scholarship going. While I’d Sara just still be here with us, I’m glad to be able to participate in the process of awarding the scholarships in her memory. Both the 2020 and 2021 recipient recognition ceremonies are available at the Scholarship website link above
If anyone is interested in contributing to the scholarship fund, they can do so here. Donations are tax-deductible for U.S. tax purposes. (When you go to the link, a box will pop up asking you to log into an account, but you can close that box by hitting the “X” in the top right corner, and you can then fill out the donation page.)