When I helped to start the QYC, I knew my participation would be short lived. I was a senior in High School, just about to graduate. I worked with QYC through the summer right up until I moved in to my dorm 1000 miles away.QYC is more than me giving a speech about how disadvantaged youth are in the LGBTQ community and how the LGBTQ community in Dallas hardly supports suffering queer youth, and instead decides to promote the age-restricted clubbing scene in Oak Lawn.It is more than a collective of High School Gay Straight Alliances in North Texas.The Queer Youth Coalition is more than a pop-up demonstration leading the front of the Dallas Pride Parade.The QYC is a symbol of hope for queer youth in North Texas, an entity committed to making the LGBTQ community of Dallas truly inclusive at all ages. It is a place where ideas are respected no matter the age of the thinker. The Queer Youth Coalition is like nothing before it, and will continue to advocate for change; as the Clubs keep on partying, and Pride Festivals are planned, and more money is diverted to making profits rather than supporting the LGBT Community in Dallas, 2000 youth in Dallas are without homes, 40% of which are estimated to be LGBTQ. Resources for queer youth in Dallas are desperately lacking in comparison to the 100,000 person turnout to pride this year. As I leave the QYC in the Capable hands of its Executive Board with Representation from across the Dallas/Fort Worth area, I want to say to them how proud I am of what they are doing. They have made my life and the lives of the queer youth in their communities so much more worth living. I am not anything special in QYC, every single person in that organization is capable and already doing more than I have, I just got recognized first. The Queer Youth Coalition is bigger than anything I ever imagined it to be.