Date: Wed, 13 Oct 1999 18:30:59 -0700 From: Jean Richter Subject: 10/13/99 P.E.R.S.O.N. Project news 1. NYAC director to step down 2. Nancy Garden novel "The Year They Burned The Books" ========================================================== Date: Mon, 20 Sep 1999 13:19:06 -0400 From: Rea Carey Subject: NYAC Executive Director to Step Down After over Six Years PRESS RELEASE CONTACT: Rea Carey Executive Director 202/319-7596, x15 rcarey@nyacyouth.org (email) ____________________ FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE September, 12, 1999 NATIONAL YOUTH ADVOCACY COALITION EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR REA CAREY ANNOUNCES RESIGNATION AFTER SIX YEAR TENURE Carey Led Transformation of Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Movement's View of Youth Washington, DC - The National Youth Advocacy Coalition's (NYAC) founding Executive Director, Rea Carey, has announced her resignation to the NYAC Board of Directors and Staff. Carey provided six years of service and leadership in the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) youth movement. Since the founding of the organization in 1993, Carey has worked with the board and staff to develop NYAC as an organization committed to LGBT youth leadership, national vision driven by community-based needs, and LGBT youth activism within a broader social justice context. NYAC exists as the only national organization solely focused on advocacy, education, and information addressing the broad range of issues facing LGBT youth. Following her departure, which is not effective until January 2000, Carey will take time to explore new opportunities. The Board of Directors and NYAC Staff will begin an immediate national search for a new Executive Director. "Rea's ability to channel her passion for grassroots activism and progressive systems change, as well as her understanding of the complexities of the lives of LGBT youth, has truly had an impact on how this country views LGBT youth," said Betsy Nelson, NYAC Board Chair. "Rea possesses the unique ability to work with a 14 year-old lesbian interested in challenging a local school policy and then turn around and articulate those needs and concerns to White House officials and Members of Congress to tell them why they must care about that young lesbian and change public policies to s... have served NYAC well for over six years. She leaves us with a strong and viable foundation on which NYAC can continue to expand and thrive into the next century. She is a remarkable leader and we will certainly miss her superb talents and abilities." During her tenure as the first Executive Director of the National Youth Advocacy Coalition, the organization saw extraordinary growth and development of its programs, funding and personnel. Among the organizational highlights are: * Fulfilling the founder's vision of becoming an independent non-profit organization following the original sponsorship by the Hetrick-Martin Institute (a New York community-based LGBT youth-service organization); * Promoting youth leadership nationwide and actively supporting youth involvement through NYAC's Board of Directors, conferences, and NYAC initiatives and activities; * Increasing the visibility and importance of youth in the LGBT movement; * Assisting other national LGBT and national youth organizations to build their capacity to address LGBT youth issues; * Expanding the organization's budget from $80,000 in its first year to its current $900,000 budget; * Increasing the staff from one to the current eleven, including staff working on health, mental health, policy, publications and materials development, referral services, technical assistance to community-based agencies, fundraising, regional and national conferences, membership development, and administrative services; * Becoming the first-ever LGBT organization to receive a grant from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Adolescent and School Health. The five-year, million dollar grant supports HIV prevention and comprehensive health promotion activities for LGBT youth; * Bringing the Bridges Project from the American Friends Service Committee to NYAC to serve as the national clearinghouse on information, referrals, and materials on issues affecting LGBT youth; * Convening the "National Summit," the only annual gathering focused entirely on the political, social, and mental/physical health issues facing LGBT youth. The Summit brings together over 400 LGBT youth and adult allies to share information, expertise, and to develop recommendations for the field; * Organizing annual conferences in all five regions of the country supporting skills-building and leadership development for LGBT youth and service-providers; * Working with governmental agencies and holding key meetings with Secretary of Health and Human Services Donna Shalala and US Attorney General Janet Reno to discuss the health and safety of LGBT youth; and * Increasing the visibility and awareness of LGBT youth issues in mainstream media. On August 26th of this year, Carey received an "Award of Excellence" from the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention's Division of Adolescent and School Health. The award honored Carey, "whose imaginative and creative efforts have positively influenced the advancement of HIV and coordinated school health programs in the nation." In announcing her resignation, Carey said, "In October, 1992, I had the honor and opportunity to be among a remarkable group of people who had a vision for a national effort that would work to support and serve a group of young people that few, at that time, cared to support. In 1994, I had the honor of being chosen to head up what was to become the National Youth Advocacy Coalition. Since that time, we have surpassed my most grand visions for what this organization and all of the people associated with it would achieve." In describing the last six years, Carey remarked, "I have been fortunate to be a part of an organization and an historical time in which the perspectives and power of LGBT youth have challenged the status quo of the larger LGBT movement and our society as a whole." Regarding her departure, Carey said, "When I thought about the time I would leave NYAC, I wanted the organization to be in a place of strength and organizational health. I am fully confident that time is now. We have a remarkable and extremely talented staff, solid programs, successful funding, and a dedicated Board of Directors. We have a reputation as an organization that fulfills our mission with honesty. NYAC works to make the connections between oppression based on sexual orientation, gender identity and other forms of oppression. NYAC is in an exciting and strong place for the next Executive Director to lead this organization on to many more new and exciting developments to address the changing needs of LGBT youth." # # # The National Youth Advocacy Coalition is the only national organization solely focused on advocacy, education, and information addressing the broad range of issues facing lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth. NYAC works to end discrimination against these young people and to ensure their physical and emotional well being. NYAC represents the interests of LGBT youth and the over 500 organizations nationwide providing support services to LGBT youth. ###30### =============================================================================== For immediate release Contact: Kate R. Kubert, Publicity Manager, 212-206-5367 Young adult novel inspired by censorship attempts Nancy Garden, author of the breakthrough book Annie on My Mind, was motivated by her experiences battling censorship to write her new novel, The Year They Burned the Books (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, September 22, 1999, $17.00). "This is a novel driven by issues . . . Garden's treatment of her themes is courageous, believable, and fair-minded . . . This is an important book that deserves a wide readership."--Booklist In 1982, Nancy Garden wrote Annie on My Mind, a story of two teenage girls who fall in love with each other. It is generally credited as being the first American young adult novel to portray homosexuality in a positive light. Annie on My Mind was an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, as well as a Booklist Editors' Choice, the year it was published. Librarians across the country bought it for their shelves. Eleven years later, however, events occurred that led to the inspiration for Garden's new book, The Year They Burned the Books. In 1993 the Olathe, Kansas, School District superintendent ordered copies of Annie to be removed from his district's library shelves after a fundamentalist minister burned it and another book on the steps of the Kansas City School Board's office building. Irate that their constitutional rights were being infringed upon, a group of students, with the support of their parents (one of whom taught in Olathe), filed a First Amendment lawsuit against the School District and the superintendent in the spring of 1994. There was a trial, and the suit was successful, and it is to the students, parents, lawyers, and librarians that The Year They Burned the Books is dedicated. . . . . . / Garden was closely involved in the lawsuit. "These events," she says, "in addition to my strong belief that censorship has no place in a free society and that thorough sex education saves lives, coupled with my awareness that many people who disagree with those positions are sincere and well-meaning-inspired The Year They Burned the Books." Being published to coincide with National Banned Books Week (September 25 - October 2, 1999), The Year They Burned the Books is a thought-provoking novel that will keenly interest many young adults today. Jamie Crawford, editor of her high school's newspaper, has written an editorial about her school's new sex education curriculum and the importance of condom availability for students. Lisa Buel, a conservative who is running for the school board, is vehemently opposed to the new curriculum, especially as it is accepting of homosexuality. She founds a group called Families for Traditional Values (FTV), and speaks out against the stand the high school paper, and later an underground paper founded by Jamie and her staff, continues to take. A heated debate involving the entire community ensues. In the end, Jamie, who has meanwhile come to terms with her own sexuality, realizes that "maybe the truth is a lot more elusive than I thought. FTV believes it's arguing for the truth, and I believe I am, and we each believe our facts are right . . . I'm pretty sure of one thing: that people, no matter what they believe or what their differences are, have to be able to live together without hurting each other." "Garden has written a book to make a point about important contemporary issues . . . Students will come away from it with enough insight to at least think before they make judgments about people, their lifestyles, and their first-amendment rights."--School Library Journal Nancy Garden says, "It is my hope that The Year They Burned the Books will spark discussions, especially in classrooms-for it is only by sharing ideas and information that we are ever going to resolve these and other difficult issues." * ================================================================================== Jean Richter -- richter@eecs.berkeley.edu The P.E.R.S.O.N. Project (Public Education Regarding Sexual Orientation Nationally) These messages are archived by state on our information-loaded free web site: http://www.youth.org/loco/PERSONProject/