North Jackson Churches Makes it Official For LGBT Community

First Federated Church at 10786 Mahoning Avenue in North Jackson, OH has made it official. After airing a welcoming commercial on television showing all are welcome at the congregation, including a gay couple, the Executive Board of the Church voted this past Thursday, August 27th, to officially designate the church a "Welcoming Church," to the LGBT community. This makes a third church that I know of to create such a designation. Our close ally, First Unitarian Church in Youngstown, All Saints Church in Cortland, and now First Federated Church in North Jackson brings to my mind a triangle around the area of affirming places of worship. The triangle is known as the strongest geometrical shape known and often represents body, mind and spirit. It is fitting that this triangle now encompasses a large portion of the Mahoning Valley, and our LGBT community, we can only hope to strengthen and grow this spirit, to encompass all churches to whom our community wishes to worship with.

First Federated Church welcomes a new Pastor, Jeff Davis, who begins his work for his congregation this Tuesday, I would like to welcome him and wish him all the best from the Mahoning Valley Pride Center. I encourage anyone in our community who is looking for a place of worhship, and has not found what feels right to themselves, to give this church, or one of the other welcoming churches in the area.

As a reminder, National Coming Out Day is always October 11th, and for the second year, the MV Pride Center is sponsoring, and being aided with a coalition of most of the LGBT organizations in the Valley, a week-long series of events, promoting the theme this year of, "Celebrating Our Diversity." There will be much more information coming out about these events shortly. There will be a planning meeting of the coalition, tomorrow, Sunday August 30th, at 1pm at the Pride Center.

CenterLink Issues an Action Alert!!

Action Alert: Help Reauthorize The Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act

On September 30, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act is set to expire. With millions of Americans living with HIV/AIDS completely dependent for their medical care on the Ryan White programs, it is vital that the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act is reauthorized by Congress.

Visit our website to automatically send an e-mail to your members of Congress.

Enacted in 1990, the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act, named after a teenager infected with HIV who became a national spokesman for the rights of people living with HIV/AIDS in the 1980s, is an attempt at making care available to those patients that cannot afford treatments by any other means. It is the largest federal program for helping people with HIV/AIDS. Starting with 220 million dollars in 1990, funding of the Ryan White programs in 2005 increased to 2.1 billion dollars with roughly one-third of the funding going to AIDS Drug Assistance Programs, which provide HIV-treatment drugs to low income patients in all fifty states.

The programs funded through the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act provide vital medical care and counseling and are “payer of last resort,” meaning they help people living with HIV/AIDS who have no other way of paying for their medication and treatments. Without the programs funded by the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act these people would literally be unable to afford their medical care.

Please help us educate members of Congress on this important issue: fill out your information on our website and send an e-mail to your elected officials in Washington D.C. and urge them to support the reauthorization for three years of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act.

Visit our website now and send an e-mail to your members of Congress.

For more information read the HIV/AIDS Community Consensus on the Future of the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Treatment Modernization Act from the CAEAR (Communities Advocating Emergency AIDS Relief) coalition.

New Chairman For Mahoning Valley Pride Center

Greetings Friends,

An emergency Board meeting was called and it is with regret that both Brian Wells and Nicole Peterson decided to step down as co-chairs to attend to their busy lives after graduation from college this past June. I am proud and humbled to have been nominated and voted-in to fulfill their remaining term as Chairman. We definitely want to thank them for their years of hard work bringing the Pride Center from the basement of the Unitarian Church to it’s new facility, thanks to Don Rowinsky and his generous donation, and wish them well in their futures. I want to personally thank them for all they have done, and I am excited to come aboard and embrace their goals of making the Pride Center a welcoming place for all of the Mahoning Valley’s LGBT community.

Our first goal is to increase the Pride Center’s membership, and create a solid foundation for future growth. With the great success of Youngstown’s first Gay Pride Celebration this past June, we are looking forward to building on that visibility and creating a safe place to meet, fellowship, counsel, learn, grow, and accept. We must build on the successes of the past and work together throughout our LGBT community, to show the Mahoning Valley that we are here, and a resource to those that are questioning themselves or are afraid they have no where to go and no one to talk to. My vision is to create a Pride Center that serves as a meeting place and resource to all of our organizations as we seek to grow in the community. To do that we will need active members, enthusiastic volunteers, wise counsel, and a commitment to get it done.

I wish to thank the Pride Center Board for having faith in me to help lead the organization. Along with the retiring co-chairs, I would like to thank my fellow officers, Secretary Louis Gastelum, Treasurer Joey Kramar, Trustee K Davis, Trustee Laura Price, and Constant Volunteer Laura Davis, for keeping their commitment to the Pride Center during this transition. I hope you will join us for our first support meeting as we come out of the Summer Break, on Wednesday, September 2nd, 7:30pm at the Pride Center. The Board will also be meeting that evening at 6:30pm if you would like to come and give your support, suggestions, and volunteer for future activities. I look forward to seeing our Pride Center grow more and accomplish more as we keep to our mission of promoting community development, and a sense of security among our LGBT community and to any in the Mahoning Valley questioning their identities. Please feel free to email or call me at anytime for any questions, discussions, suggestions, or help.

Sincerely,
Scott Fullerton
Mahoning Valley Pride Center Chairman
MahoningValleyPrideCenter(at)yahoo.com or Ytownredux(at)yahoo.com

P.S. The Mahoning Valley Pride Center is now on Twitter. Our account name is "MVPrideCenter" I hope all our LGBT Tweeters out there will follow us for updates, announcements, and reminders.

Canada's Provacative AIDS Campaign

Just some FYI, Canada has a new AIDS awareness campaign that's been launched, focusing on how it's not just who you sleeping with, but who THEY have slept with as well. It takes a provacative picture and uses it bring across their point.

This comes at a time where the US has announced that the number of AIDS cases has dropped dramatically here. We must still be diligent and not stop in our search for a cure and a better quality of life. We were the leaders in the world on addressing this issue, and taking care of and informing our own community. We must not slow down, and keep information out there, not to scare, but to inform

Rain Stays Away For Annual Picnic At Craigs Beach

The annual summer picnic at Craig Beach was held this past Saturday from 10-5pm. Special thanks to Laura Davis, K. Davis, and Joey Kramar for taking charge of the event. Not only did they buy all of the supplies and cook all of the hamburgers and hot dogs for everyone, they were also at the campsite before 9 to set it all up and even circled the tables and laid out tablecloths.

The event drew about 20 people. More were expected but a lot of people were scared off due to threat of rain, and there was another picnic up in Geneva that was put on by Erie Pride. Everyone had a great time, the sky was blue most of the day, it got warm, but not too hot, and there were a few that took advantage of the cool lake to splash around a bit. Thanx to everyone that attended, and we are looking for bigger and bigger turn-outs at future events. Pictures will be posted soon.