Photo of Lance Bredvold at an FFRF convention by Chris LineOn Christmas Day, the freethought community lost a fierce advocate for college-bound secular youth with the death of FFRF donor and member Lance Bredvold.
Lance’s kindness, vision and generosity were critical to the sustainability of the Black Skeptics Los Angeles’ First in the Family Humanist Forward Freethought Scholarship Program, which is entering its 13th year. Black Skeptics initiated the program in 2013 to provide college resources for first-in-the-family secular students of color from undocumented, foster care, unhoused and LGBTQIA+ backgrounds.
This initiative was the only secular scholarship tuition program exclusively dedicated to Black and BIPOC secular college-bound youth. In 2014, I reached out to Annie Laurie Gaylor about the possibility of enlisting FFRF’s support for the scholarship awards. For five years, Annie Laurie administered funding for the program via the FFRF’s Catherine Farhringer Memorial Fund, which enabled us to award $2,500 scholarships to students from all over the country. In 2019, Lance became the sole donor of the First in the Family scholarship awards after they were moved from the Fahringer Fund to FFRF’s Forward Freethought Tuition Scholarship Fund.
Over the span of six years, Lance donated between $30,000 to $35,000 annually, allowing six students a year to receive $5,000 apiece. Lance was especially passionate about providing resources to vulnerable secular students who might not have had the financial and/or academic backing and encouragement to go to college. He often referenced his own college experiences as a struggling working class student, stressing the need to provide resources for underrepresented secular students against the tide of religious indoctrination.
According to his bio, Lance was a Vietnam veteran, avid cyclist and longtime AA advocate. I had the pleasure of meeting him back in 2022 when he ventured out to Los Angeles from Montana for one of his many shareholder meetings. We also corresponded about the progress of awardees throughout the year, and he became a strong supporter of our Women’s Leadership Project college readiness and gender-based violence prevention programs for Black girls, girls of color and queer youth. A few months before his death, he told me he attended a No Kings rally in his community and expressed optimism about the robust turnout.
Lance’s unwavering dedication to secular college support helped make our First in the Family Humanist Scholarship a national example for amplifying the unique college trajectories and needs of secular youth of color. In the midst of the Trump regime’s assault on educational opportunities for youth of color, queer youth and undocumented youth, these scholarships have become even more important.
Last year, we were excited to award five scholarships to an all African American cohort of atheist, humanist and agnostic students who are now attending colleges as diverse as UCLA, Morehouse College and Tuskegee University. As Alviana Anderson, one of our 2025 recipients, noted in her awardee video:
“(Receiving this award) is an honor. Growing up as a Black youth, especially in secular spaces, and as an LGBTQ youth, hasn’t always been easy. This award validates that people like me who question and think critically and who believe in justice and equity are not just seen but they are also valued. To me, representation matters. I grew up with not a lot of secular voices and leaders in my community. So when I see people who look like me standing tall in secular spaces, it opens doors. It lets people of color and the youth know that it’s OK to question authority and explore nonreligious identities and to live authentically.”
Many thanks, and rest in power, to Lance for supporting this vital, one-of-a-kind initiative which has touched the lives of so many young people. He led by humanist example, and for that, we’re eternally grateful.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sikivu Hutchinson is the founder of Black Skeptics Los Angeles and the Women’s Leadership Project and the author of “Humanists in the Hood: Unapologetically Black, Feminist and Heretical” (2020). She was named FFRF’s Freethought Heroine in 2021. Several years ago, FFRF began offering the annual David Hudak Memorial Essay Competition for Freethinking Black, Indigenous and Students of Color, which also awards scholarships, joining four other FFRF competitions open to all students in the class/age brackets.
Disclaimer: The views in this column are of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the Freedom From Religion Foundation.
