Until now I’d lost all hope; yet, I felt as though I had more to offer. My extracurricular activities had to be more impactful; and this was my way of passing some of me, onto them. Beginning my senior year of high school, I began to volunteer with the MY BASE (Motivated Youth Believing in all Self-Empowerment) Youth Civic Engagement Program. Participants in MY BASE work on multiple service projects that serve to address the concerns of youth in Central Brooklyn. Given the difficulties I faced coming out as a homosexual, I proposed the need to provide for a greater number of safe spaces for youth who identify with such a community. Minority queer youth especially, face increased stigmatization due to anti-queer discrimination from heterosexual individuals and racism within the queer community. I thus, decided to plan a service project to increase the awareness of such an acute problem. The erasure, and lack thereof, of a presence of sexual minorities within predominantly African American societies, tends to be one of little importance; and such individuals have the right to have their voices and opinions heard. Ultimately, I would like to explore the ways in which race and gender identity coalesce to disproportionately affect queer people of color. More so than achieving a benchmark of “success” upon completion of my service project however, I hoped my service project would serve to make my Bedford-Stuyvesant community more conscious- conscious of the importance of intersectional approaches when wishing to understand discrimination; more conscious that much research has to be done on the plights of minority queer individuals; more conscious that individuals experience the world through the lens of a totality of their identities.