Carol Bullock, the executive director of the Staten Island Pride Center, is leaving the organization later this year following a seven-year run that culminated in a successful campaign to allow LGBTQ organizations to participate in the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade.
Bullock, who joined the Staten Island Pride Center in December of 2017, will leave her post at the end of March. She will continue to lead the organization through the March 2 Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade, which will mark the organization’s first official appearance in the borough-wide event after a years-long push to lift a discriminatory ban on LGBTQ groups. The organization is hosting a farewell party for Bullock on March 7.
“I had some goals in mind when I started off with The Center,” Bullock said in an interview with Gay City News on Jan. 9. It wasn’t an easy decision [to leave] by any means, but thinking about where we’ve grown the center as far as funding and staffing and programing, it just seems like everything is in such a great place.”
The seven-year stint at the Staten Island Pride Center represented a major pivot for Bullock, who previously spent three decades working in a much different capacity in the private sector with Staples. The career change meant navigating a completely different environment.
“I always had a curiosity about not-for-profits when I was working in the for-profit world,” Bullock said. “However, this is something that’s just a different animal — it was a challenge.”
But Bullock said she adjusted to the new normal and noticed the community impact of the Staten Island Pride Center’s work. She never felt that way in the for-profit environment, and it quickly became a major motivating factor behind the work she and her team carried out throughout her tenure.
According to tax filings, the Staten Island Pride Center’s revenue increased from $484,000 in 2017 to $1.45 million by 2023, though expenses outpaced revenue that year.
Bullock is especially proud of the way the Pride Center improved programming under her leadership, and she said the organization’s board has been “incredibly supportive.” The simple act of reaching out to other people and groups in the community, Bullock said, has had an enormous impact on the organization.
“That has led to so many awesome collaborations across Staten Island,” said Bullock, who cited examples of fundraising events the Pride Center has held with two other organizations. “It’s been incredible.”
To that end, the Pride Center has made inroads with Staten Island businesses, organizations, and schools in a way that “has been nothing short of astounding,” Bullock said.
“When I took over the Pride Center, people had this feeling of hesitancy to put themselves out there,” Bullock explained. “Now, whoever will listen, we will talk.”
The Pride Center has been front and center on local LGBTQ issues in the borough — and at times, they’ve faced adversity. In 2019, the organization boycotted the Staten Island Yankees after the team partnered with Chick-fil-A — the notoriously anti-LGBTQ fast food chain Chik-Fil-A. Not long after that, a man was accused of sending numerous homophobic letters to the Pride Center, including one note that demanded “you and your sick pals… be put out to pasture once and for all for the sake of mankind.”
Those letters also targeted Bullock directly, but in a 2019 interview with Gay City News, she was undeterred and stressed that “the good we do outweighs something like this.”
Even in the face of adversity, the Pride Center has also stepped up at critical junctures. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization beefed up food distribution to older adults in the borough, transitioned to virtual programming, and saw an uptick in youth attendance, among other actions.
That kind of community engagement was on full display in recent months when Bullock and her team at the Pride Center first learned that the Staten Island St. Patrick’s Day Parade would welcome LGBTQ groups for the first time. For several years in a row, Bullock and others would visit the registration table in an attempt to sign up for the parade, only to be turned away year after year simply for being part of the LGBTQ community.
The timing of Bullock’s departure — just weeks after the parade is scheduled — was purely coincidental, she said. She learned about the parade’s new inclusive policy just one day before she met with board members to inform them of her forthcoming departure.
At first, she was somewhat skeptical when she was told the parade would be opened up because she was told last year that she would be accepted into the parade, but was rejected after she arrived.
“When the call came through, I said, ‘Well, that’s what you told me last year.’ They said, ‘Your application was accepted. We want the Pride Center in the Parade. If you’re in, say yes.’” “The minute they said that to me, it was a lot of emotion.”
Bullock said she was touched when a Staten Island native who now lives on the West Coast reached out to express her satisfaction after she read the news about the march.
Bullock is not immediately sure of her next move, but for now she plans to take some time off and travel across the country with her wife.
“I’m going to take a break and enjoy life,” Bullock said. “Not-for-profit and helping communities is in my DNA. I’m sure at some point I’ll show back up.”
