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NY LGBT youth center names residence for Bea Arthur
08.19.2009 3:30pm EDT
(New York) The Ali Forney Center, the nation’s largest organization dedicated to homeless LGBT youth,
will formally announce its plan to name a residence for LGBT youth in
honor of Bea Arthur at her memorial service on Sept. 14 at the Majestic
Theater in New York City.
The Ali Forney Center is working with a group of Bea’s close friends and colleagues to plan the memorial service.
“Bea
Arthur was tremendously kind and generous to the Ali Forney Center”
says Carl Siciliano, AFC Founder and Executive Director. “The caring
and concern that Bea expressed for our kids meant the world to us, and
we are thrilled to be able to give honor to her memory in this way.”
In
November 2005, Bea flew to New York City from her home in Los Angeles
in order to give a special benefit performance of her one-woman show.
The performance raised over $40,000 for the Ali Forney Center.
In
an interview for Next Magazine Bea explained her decision to offer her
support, “I’m very, very involved in charities involving youth and the
plight of foster children. But these kids at the Ali Forney
Center are literally dumped by their families because of the fact that
they are lesbian, gay, or transgender - this organization really is
saving lives.”
Bea continued to offer her support, both
as a donor and as an advocate. In one of her very last interviews,
published in the New York Blade in May 2008, Bea spoke with pride of
having done the benefit for AFC, and indicated that she would do
anything to help gay kids disowned by their parents.
The Ali
Forney Center currently offers eight residential sites in New York City
to provide shelter and housing to homeless LGBT youth, all of which it
rents. AFC has recently received generous financial support from the
Oak Foundation to support a plan to purchase housing sites. The Ali
Forney Center is committed to naming its first purchased site the Bea
Arthur Residence for LGBT Youth.
“Before Bea became involved with
us, we only had two sites, and could only shelter 12 kids.” says
Siciliano. “We were struggling to respond to an epidemic of
homelessness that was not very well understood, even in the LGBT
community. Bea’s support and advocacy really helped raise awareness in
our community. Bea Arthur played a crucial part in our efforts to
expand our capacity to respond to the hundreds of LGBT youths who come
to us for help. She feels very much like a patron saint!”
The Ali
Forney Center is the nation’s largest organization dedicated to
homeless LGBT youth. AFC currently provides eight residential sites
offering emergency shelter and longer-term housing, and additionally
provides two drop-in centers which offer medical care, mental health
treatment, HIV prevention, testing and treatment, housing and benefit
assistance, and job training and placement services. The mission of the
Ali Forney Center is to help homeless LGBT youth be safe and become
independent as they move from adolescence to adulthood. Ali Forney was
a queer youth who was murdered on the streets in 1997, when there was
no safe shelter for LGBT youth in NYC.