Lindsay Miller Ignities CHEER in Colorado

P-O-W-E-R: what’s that spell? POWER!

For the past three years, CHEER Colorado has been raising spirits a mile high. Part of the Pride Cheerleading Association, a network of adult cheer teams that support local, LGBTQ charities and perform at various Prides and the international Gay Games, CHEER Colorado picks a primary beneficiary each year to make a substantial donation. Their volunteers nominate and select local charities devoted to LGBTQ causes, health and wellness, and inclusion and diversity.

CHEER Colorado was founded by Lindsay Miller, one of this year’s Power Winners. Since its inception, Miller served as the organization’s executive director and brought CHEER Colorado’s mission to life in various ways. She also held some other leadership positions but recently stepped down from all of those roles to be a full-time, performing team volunteer.

OUT FRONT had the opportunity to chat more with Miller to learn more about CHEER Colorado, the significant impact it’s had on the Denver LGBTQ community, and why she will forever hold this organization close to her heart.

Hello, Lindsay! Thank you for taking some time to chat with me. How does it feel to be a Power Winner?
It feels wonderful and a bit unbelievable! CHEER Colorado has performed at the Power Gala twice before, so I know how significant this is. We always felt very fortunate to be able to be included as performers, but never in my wildest dreams did I imagine being included as an award winner.

You were selected for your work with CHEER Colorado. Can you tell us more about the organization and its history?
CHEER Colorado is a nonprofit group of adult, volunteer cheerleaders who stunt and perform to raise spirits, awareness, and funds for local LGBTQ causes and charities. We have participated in the Pride events of Denver, Boulder, Longmont, and Aurora, and Governor Polis has twice proclaimed an official CHEER Colorado Day. In terms of our charitable impact, we have donated a total of $47,500 in our three years of existence supporting Youth Celebrate Diversity in our first season, Rainbow Alley in our second, and most recently, Transgender Center of the Rockies.

We are the only charitable cheerleading team in Colorado, but there are a dozen other teams like ours sprinkled across the country that make up the Pride Cheerleading Association, PCA. Some of these teams are even younger than we are, while CHEER San Francisco just celebrated their 40th anniversary. It’s a magical family to be a part of.

Have you been with CHEER Colorado since the beginning?
I have. Since day one. Well, actually, from a year before day one. I founded the team here, but before that, I was a member of another PCA team in Seattle called, you’ll never guess, CHEER Seattle. I decided to move to Denver a year before I did. So, some of the forming of the organization happened even before I lived here, including my first Denver Pride.

A bunch of cheerleaders from CHEER Seattle and CHEER Salt Lake City flew out to Denver to march in the parade and announce that this thing called charitable cheerleading was coming to Colorado. Then I moved and kicked off the formation of the team in earnest about a month later.

Why did you initially, even before coming to Denver, want to be involved with PCA?
I found my way to CHEER Seattle because I used to love cheerleading, which I hadn’t done for over a decade at that point. My friend told me about this thing with adult cheerleaders, and I said, ‘OK, let’s check it out.’

In the process of joining CHEER Seattle and being with them for their first three years, my involvement with CHEER Seattle was such a significant part of my life when I lived there. I knew I had no choice but to try to start it here. It was where I met my closest friends; it was how I gave back; it was how I stayed active and strong, and I couldn’t imagine moving to a new place not having that. I didn’t know whether it would work or whether I could convince people in their 20s, 30s, and beyond to join a team like this, but I had to try.

Related article: Cheers for Queers 

Can you elaborate more on how CHEER Colorado specifically helps the queer community and positively impacts LGBTQ Coloradans?
I think of this across three dimensions. The first way that we specifically help is through the big donations we make each year to support deserving local charities that are directly providing services and programs that benefit Colorado’s LGBTQ community. They are able to do things with the money we give them that they wouldn’t be able to do otherwise. That is one way we have a positive impact.

The second is to the LGBTQ community that sees us at the events. We perform and volunteer as part of our mission to raise spirits, and by adding to the spectacle and the joy at these events, we hope to help shine the light on the community and make people feel seen, accepted, and loved, like they belong; they’re family.

Finally, there’s the impact that we have on and through our volunteers themselves. It is true that many of them are drawn to the organization specifically to support the LGBTQ community, and it is also true that some of them are drawn to it at first because they love cheerleading, and this is an interesting way for them to turn a beloved activity into a cool way to give back. This might be their first meaningful introduction to and emerging within the LGBTQ community. Their first time going to a gay bar, their first time learning about some of the ways the LGBTQ community desperately needs specific support.

Through the experience of volunteering with us, and through that immersion, they become the informed, educated, passionate allies that we hope to see more of in the world.

It sounds like CHEER Colorado has become a very beneficial organization.
I certainly hope so! We are only as beneficial as the community and the individuals within think and feel that we are.

What is your definition of power?
I like power as a verb. It’s something that you do to something else. I think of it as a sense of empowerment. The things we can power. We are a source of plugging in something and making it better, stronger, and more powerful than it was before. I like thinking of it that way.

However, I do have on my desk a gift that was given to me by an old colleague before I moved, and it is a quote from the one, the only, Michelle Obama. It says, ‘People who are truly powerful bring others together,’ and that absolutely resonates with me. I could have been as passionate, as motivated, as willing to do whatever, but one cheerleader cannot do it alone. It took other people willing to step up and do this along with me. That has been responsible for any positive impact we have been able to have.

Does CHEER Colorado have any events or performances we should be on the lookout for?
Some of the events that we have traditionally supported have gone virtual, most recently Denver Pride and the Festival for Life. So, to have our performances in them, we recorded and livestreamed.

Looking ahead, TBD. It might be more of the same, or we may be invited to some events that will allow us to cheer in an outdoor space with social distancing and masks. We have rainbow, glittery masks with our logo on them ready to go. But yes, it’s TBD, but if people have events going on that they think they would like our participation in, in person or remote, we hope they will connect with us. We are ready to raise spirits.

For more information, follow CHEER Colorado on Facebook
at facebook.com/CHEERColorado and Instagram @cheercolorado, or visit cheercolorado.org.