SAVE THE DATE: Saturday, July 25, 2009
REACH LA Presents
OVAHNESS 4 Ball: L’ Acte Finale
Saturday, July 25, 2009
GAM Art Center
4975 W. Pico Blvd., LA, CA 90019
Tickets: $30 Tables: $100
Ball starts promptly at 10pm and ends at 1AM
For more information contact Greg at 213-622-1650 x109 or Sean at x103
Categories are posted on myspace.com/ovahness
REACH LA is proud to announce that Francisco (Frank) Armenta, 20, REACH LA’s own Ovahness Leader, has received the 2009 Courage Award by the Colin Higgins Foundation. Frank is one of three national winners who will be honored at the Trevor Project Gala in New York City on June 29, 2009.
Battling homophobia on a daily basis in East Los Angeles, Frank was routinely called a “faggot” throughout high school. After being kicked out of class by a teacher for “gay” artwork on his binder, Frank called a parent-teacher meeting, only to learn that his Mexican-Catholic family would not stand up for him due to their embarrassment that he was gay. This experience fueled him to become an activist, spanning from collaborating with the GSA to design a new web-based campaign, ”Be An Ally”, to support gay youth at his predominantly Latino high school, to becoming the youngest certified HIV Counselor and Tester in LA county. Through his activism to increase youth HIV testing, Frank has been able to provide invaluable recommendations to key policy makers on best practices for treating queer youth of color during the testing process. Currently, Frank works at REACH LA as a Social Enterprise Assistant and Peer Health Counselor, and continues to fuse his passion for graphic art design with his activism by creating all the electronic and print media for the Ovahness program serving queer young men of color. He also helps support other community LGBT youth groups such as Connect to Protect by creating original designs for their marketing materials and media campaigns.
Ana Lopez, REACH LA’s former Outreach Coordinator, also received the Courage Award honor in 2006.