Long Island Crisis Center

Thank You to Our Recent Donors from Our Holiday '06 Campaign:

Alice Sparberg Alexiou, Florence Campanile, Jeannie De Maio,

John Filimon, Reid Fishler, Vincent L. Gurrieri

Rose Kreiswirth, Randi Mitzner, Harold O'Brien

Ken Page, Karen Poza, Eva Price

Clifford Richner, Eva Sanchez, James Speights

Richard Thomas, Robert Titus, George Trznadel, Mayer Wiesen

Andy Peters accepting one of two Outlook awards presented to PFY/LICC this year with Tom Hroncich (left), Editor of Outlook Magazine and (right) Honorable Jonathan Cooper, Majority Leader, Suffolk County Legislature

Pride for Youth would like to congratulate its Peer Educators who will be

attending college in the fall:

Greg Forrester- State University of New York at Purchase College

Twelvette Singletary-Queensboro Community College

Dean Kaufman- Nassau Community College

and

Dee Brown who will be attending Nassau BOCES Cultural Arts Center

We wish them the best of luck!

Thank you to Bridgette Nicolini for her March 10th benefit for Pride for Youth at Zen Lounge. Pictured here are Rhonda Schuster, local musical artist, LICC Board President Carmela Murphy and Bridgette Nicolini of WayOut Productions.

HeartB.E.A.T.S. Conference 2006, Hofstra University

\ Peer Eds at the Human Rights Awareness Conference, 2006, Adelphi University

PFY was nominated in two categories and picked up both awards at Outlook Long Island’s 2006 Best of the Community Awards event on January 20, 2007. PFY Director Andy Peters and Executive Director Linda Leonard accepted the honors at a gala dinner at the Historical Thatched Cottage. The agency, designated as Long Island Crisis Center/Pride for Youth, was chosen as “Best Health and Human Services Organization” and “Best Organization Overall.” PFY’s Endless Summer Party was also nominated in the category of “Best Fundraising Event.”

Outlook Long Island asks its readers to nominate groups and individuals for the award categories then conducts an on-line vote to select winners. Outlook Long Island is an LGBT-interest news magazine for Nassau and Suffolk county residents.

PYF's Peer Educator troupe took part in two county-wide conferences to raise young people's awareness on homophobia and HIV/AIDS.

On Friday, December 1st the group led educational theatre workshops at the Sixth Annual HeartB.E.A.T.S. (Bringing Education About AIDS to Schools) Conference at Hofstra University. This program, co-sponsored by PFY, the Nassau County HIV Commission and Planned Parenthood of Nassau County,brought together 200 middle school students from nine different schools. The program included a panel of people living with AIDS, a health fair, and break-out workshops, including the peer educators' "Homophobia and HIV" presentation. PFY's Prevention Specialist Travis Tucker was interviewed by Telecare for a special segment on the conference aired later that day. HeartB.E.A.T.S. was supported by a grant from BJ's Charitable Foundation.

On February 8th, the peer educators traveled to Adelphi University for the annual Nassau County Human Rights Awareness Conference. The event featured workshops throughout the day on the topics of bigotry and discrimination, one of which was facilitated by PFY's peer educators. They drew standing-room only audiences, as they sensitized high school juniors from 56 school districts to homophobia and the experiences of teenagers growing up gay, bisexual or transgender.

The conference was sponsored by Adelphi University, Nassau County Board of Cooperative Educational Services, Nassau County Police Department, Nassau County District Attorney’s Office, Nassau County Educators, New York Civil Liberties Union, and What Color is Love, Inc.

Long Island Crisis Center Executive Director, Linda Leonard, and Pride for Youth’s Associate Director, Andy Peters, gratefully accepted a $14,000 grant from CMP Technology’s Jim Pizzo in January. The grant, which was made possible by CMP's parent organization, United Business Media, will be used to fund Pride for Youth’s mentoring program, as well as the Long Island Crisis Center’s Street Outreach Project and Online counseling services.

Linda Leonard & Andy Peters with some of PFY 's Advisory Board members accepting a $14,000 grant check from Jim Pizzo of CMP Technology.

Former PFY participants now have a place to go to stay in touch with the organization and the friends they made while going to the Coffeehouse and other popular programs. PFY alum Mike Zaleski created a page for alumni on the popular social-networking site Myspace and over the past few months the page has grown to include over 150 "friends".

"The problem was that the majority of alumni have moved around. Letters we sent out were often returned to us and we had no real way of knowing if the others were actually reaching alumni. But I wasn't ready to give up yet!" says Zaleski. The Myspace group has helped greatly in reducing this problem.

The page includes a public message board where many alumni have written in testimonials about their fond memories at PFY. Two former particiants remarked: "PFY was like my second home" and "I have extremely good memories of PFY and all the friends I made there!"

Pride for Youth established its Alumni Group in early 2006 and many PFY Alumns are active in contributing to Pride for Youth in ways such as speaking at the Coffeehouse program, and participating in PFY's Fall Fest event.

For more information about the PFY Alumni group, please visit the Pride for Youth website at www.prideforyouth.org and our Myspace group at: Myspace.com/prideforyouthalumnigroup.

Peer Eds participate in AIDSwalk '07

May 20

Sony/BMG recording artist Johnny Valentine performs!

May 15

PFY staff & youth visit Albany for Empire State Pride Agenda's Equality & Justice Day

May 1

Endless Summer Party

Sept 16, 2007