Out to Benefits and Galas

Spring is a time when many non-profits have their benefits and galas. We have attended a number of them in the last two weeks. Here is a quick picture tour:

As mentioned earlier, Facing History and Ourselves hosted a Community Conservation with human rights activists John Prendergast and actor Don Cheadle (Hotel Rwanda and Crash). They talked about their book "Not on Our Watch: The Mission to End Genocide in Darfur and Beyond."

We then attended annual fundraising dinner for Outlet. It was the organization’s 10th anniversary. Outlet supports and empowers lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and questioning youth ages 13-20 living on the Peninsula and South Bay. Outlet's mission is to increases youth confidence, builds personal assets, and creates healthier communities through a range of support services, leadership training, community education and advocacy. We are pictured with the emcees for the evening, Fernando and Greg, the out morning team from the SF radio station Energy 92.7. We recently switched to listening to them. We both find them to be witty, catty and fabulous! Although, we don’t always understand the pop cultural references they goof on. I doubt we could recognize a Kelly Clarkson from a Paris Hilton if our life depended on it. (Fortunately, it doesn’t.) Although we love dancing to club dance music, we can’t stand listening to the station’s “pure dance” format. It is just “thump, thump, thump” for the rest of the day. After Fernando and Greg in the morning, we switch back to KFOG and its “world class rock” format.

Special guest was American Idol finalist R.J. Helton. Helton, a finalist from the first season of American Idol (another cultural reference we know nothing about), came out last October. He was one of the final five contestants but lost to Kelly Clarkson. He attended the event with his partner.

Much of last weekend was given to attending the 30th anniversary gala of National Center for Lesbian Rights (NCLR). NCLR is a national legal organization committed to advancing the civil and human rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender people and their families through litigation, public policy advocacy, and public education. They have done great legal work for the community. The gala was fun even with thousands of lesbians and only a few hundred gay men. We ran into many old friends and met some wonderful new ones. This year’s featured honorees were Martina Navratilova and John Amaechi.
The emcee was comedian Kate Clinton.