Stepping Stone’s Lifesaving Legacy Honored with Spirit of Stonewall Service Award
By Cesar A Reyes
For nearly five decades, Stepping Stone of San Diego has been a lifeline for LGBTQ+ people seeking recovery, stability, and hope. This year, that legacy is being recognized with one of the community’s highest honors: the 2026 Spirit of Stonewall Service Award from San Diego Pride.
Founded in 1976, just one year after San Diego Pride itself began, Stepping Stone emerged during a time when LGBTQ+ people had few safe places to turn for help. Addiction treatment, mental health services, and housing support were often inaccessible or openly hostile to queer people. Rather than wait for someone else to solve the problem, members of the LGBTQ+ community created their own solution.
Nearly 50 years later, Stepping Stone remains one of the nation’s leading LGBTQ+-specialized addiction recovery organizations, providing free and affirming services that include residential treatment, outpatient care, sober living, housing support, HIV-related services, and trauma-informed recovery programs.
For Executive Director Andrew Picard, the award is not simply recognition of an organization. It is recognition of generations of people who refused to let each other fall through the cracks.
“It is incredibly meaningful for Stepping Stone to receive this year’s Stonewall Service Award,” Picard said. “It celebrates nearly 50 years of LGBTQ+ people showing up for one another through addiction, HIV/AIDS, homelessness, grief, discrimination, recovery, and healing.”
The award arrives at a significant moment as Stepping Stone approaches its 50th anniversary. Throughout those decades, the organization has weathered countless challenges, from the AIDS epidemic to changing political climates, while continuing to serve some of the community’s most vulnerable members.
Picard believes the honor belongs to everyone who helped carry the organization forward.
“This award is not just for our current team,” he said. “It belongs to every person who kept Stepping Stone alive through difficult years. It belongs to the alumni who came back to help the next person. It belongs to the staff who have poured their hearts into this work. It belongs to the clients who chose recovery, sometimes after the world had made them feel disposable.”
That spirit of community care remains at the heart of Stepping Stone’s mission. While the organization provides clinical services and housing support, Picard says the real transformation often comes from something less tangible but equally powerful: belonging.
Many people who walk through Stepping Stone’s doors arrive carrying the weight of rejection, trauma, isolation, or shame. What they discover is more than treatment.
“At Stepping Stone, they find more than treatment,” Picard explained. “They find community. They find people who understand them. They find a path back to themselves.”
The connection between Stepping Stone and San Diego Pride runs deep. Both organizations were born from the same movement and share a common belief that LGBTQ+ people deserve not only visibility, but support, dignity, and opportunity. Today, Stepping Stone continues that partnership through initiatives like Recovery Village, creating welcoming spaces where sober community members can fully participate in Pride celebrations.
Receiving the Spirit of Stonewall Service Award also sends a powerful message about what Pride means.
“This recognition says that recovery is part of LGBTQ+ liberation,” Picard said. “It says that housing, healing, mental health, sobriety, HIV care, and belonging are Pride issues.”
As Pride season unfolds, the award serves as a reminder that the LGBTQ+ movement has always been about more than celebration. It has been about survival, resilience, and taking care of one another when no one else would.
Asked to describe the word that best represents Stepping Stone’s mission, Picard’s answer came easily.
“The WORD is Belonging.”
It is a simple word, but one that captures nearly fifty years of life-saving work. Because at Stepping Stone, belonging is more than a feeling. It is the foundation for recovery, healing, and hope. And for thousands of LGBTQ+ San Diegans whose lives have been changed by the organization, it has made all the difference.