Named for Franklin Brooks, The Brooks Fund of The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee supports a variety of nonprofit programs to enhance the quality of life for Middle Tennessee’s GLBT community and to build bridges between all segments of the community. The Brooks Fund is building an endowment to support the needs of the GLBT community, now and forever.
Created in 1995, The Brooks Fund perpetuates Franklin Brooks’ forthright championing of human rights. Franklin was one of the most beloved figures on the Vanderbilt University Campus, as an associate professor in the Department of French and Italian. He was instrumental in leading the dialogue that eventually helped include gays and lesbians in Vanderbilt’s anti-harassment policy in the late 1980s.
It was important to Franklin that young gay people had positive role models – to make certain they knew there were gay people in the world living their lives and not cowering in the margins. To that end, he was the faculty sponsor for the first lesbian and gay student organization on campus. Franklin’s tireless work to promote equality and diversity among the entire community is a legacy that lives on through The Brooks Fund.
The annual Wanderlust Travel Raffle supports The Brooks Fund’s grantmaking to local nonprofits and its initiatives, such as the History Project, an important multimedia archival of GLBT life in Middle Tennessee going as far back as the 1930s.
For more information on getting involved, supporting The Brooks Fund or its History Project, or attending the 2010 Wanderlust Travel Raffle, visit The Brooks Fund website or call The Community Foundation of Middle Tennessee at 615-321-4939.
