Isaac Dupont Named 2026 Valdez Scholar

Founded in 2011 by Roberto Valdez this scholarship brings one of our YouthSPEAK alumni on our annual retreat to Italy. This year we are thrilled to award Isaac Dupont with this opportunity to explore their creative self. We are looking for 200 people to donate just $20.00 apiece to make this possible!

Here is Isaac's compelling story in their own words:

My name is Isaac Dupont. I am an artist and educator. Art has always been a refuge and a resource for me. I have used it to work through some of the hardest parts of my life, to discover things about myself, and to figure out how to become the kind of person I want to be in the world. When I was 19, I interned at SPOKE, then called Medicine Wheel. There, I learned about the impact art can have on communities, both as a tool and a medium for care and organization. Not only did this expand my worldview and prove foundational to who I am as a person, but for one of the first times in my life, I felt fully seen. I have said for years that Michael Dowling did not let me get away with anything, and that was what I needed. He, and the other staff at SPOKE, saw me as the excited, determined, queer person that I was. I felt like parts of myself that had rarely been acknowledged by anyone outside of myself were being seen and honored, and I was able to be my full self for the first time in my life. Working on the annual Day With(out) Art installation allowed me to connect with a history that had never been taught to or shared with me. I still return each year, whenever I can, to spend time watching performances and spending time with the pieces of the AIDS quilts that remind me of where I come from and who came before me. Without this experience, none of what came after in my life would have happened.

Since working with SPOKE that first time, I have returned to case manage for the youthspeak program. I have become a teacher, and run a queer straight alliance for middle schoolers. I have worked with disabled youth through a disability justice lens. I was given an award when parents donated to the district I worked for in my name because of my work with the QSA. I have fought with the administration on behalf of queer youth. I have taught kids boundaries, social justice tools, and more through the mediums of printmaking, zines, sculpting, drawing, poetry. I have received countless notes and letters from students telling me how I have impacted their lives. Now I am working on helping my current place of work source harm reduction tools to have available for our community.

But the past few years have been difficult. With rising transphobia I have been forced out of an impactful career in education after repeated discrimination made it impossible to stay. My health has begun to collapse at an alarming rate, with healthcare being incredibly difficult to access in part because of rampant transphobia. I have been unable to take time off because I need income in order to survive. Even now I am trying to return to my roots serving local communities, and struggling to do so while I try to maintain some baseline in my health, work full time, and try to meet my daily needs. In all of this, I have lost touch with my art practice. I have been unable to engage in what used to be my biggest tool for dealing with stress and working through emotion and anxiety and connecting with other people. Being able to take time off and focus on this practice again would mean the world to me, and would help me return to doing the kind of community work I learned at SPOKE.

Support Bringing Isaac on our annual Artist Retreat to Italy

Just 200 gifts of only $20.00 makes this dream a reality

Team Members