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A reception to kick off new LGBT programs for seniors will be held at Vintage House Sonoma, 264 1^st St. East, on Friday, June 23, from 2-4 p.m. Lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors are invited to enjoy refreshments and discuss ideas about LGBT specific programs and activities they would like offered at Vintage House while learning about the many current programs, classes and services. The Sonoma Valley LGBT Seniors Group has long held monthly discussions at the center.

The reception is part of the innovative LGBT Seniors Outreach Project of the Sonoma County Department of Human Services Adult and Aging Division, with partial funding provided by Community Foundation Sonoma County’s LGBTQI Giving Circle Fund.

“We want to ensure that all seniors, including LGBT seniors, feel welcome and valued in Sonoma County,” said Adult & Aging Division Interim Director Gary Fontenot.

Through the Project, Vintage House staff recently attended an LGBT cultural competency training focusing on the difficulties LGBT seniors experience in their communities and strategies to ensure they feel welcome in their local senior centers.

“We are excited about getting input from local LGBT seniors on more ways to provide programming and activities that encourage and excite participation from our diverse community,” said Vintage House Executive Director Cynthia Scarborough.

For more information about the Vintage House reception, contact Program Manager Camellia Wire at (707) 996-0311, or email programs@vintagehouse.org.

Sonoma County Pride announces plans for its 2017 Pride Celebration Weekend which will take place June 2-4, 2017.

In recognition of the 30^th anniversary of the first public Gay Pride event in Sonoma County, Sonoma County Pride offers a diverse lineup of events for 2017.

Friday, June 2:

Billy Gilman and Steve Grand in Concert, sponsored by Graton Resort & Casino. 9:00PM

“The Voice” 2016 first runner-up and vocal sensation Billy Gilman and internet celebrity country singer Steve Grand make their first appearances in the north bay area at Graton Resort & Casino located in Rohnert Park, CA. Tickets are $20 and $35 and are on sale NOW through the casino website and on Ticketmaster. Both artists will host a meet and greet event following the show.

Saturday, June 3:

National LGBTQ March Solidarity Rally at Guerneville Lodge in Guerneville, CA. 1:00PM

National LGBTQI March – Solidarity Rally at Guernevillle Lodge featuring a broad spectrum of local, state and national community organizations and government leaders/officials. There will also be music, food and exhibitors at this beautiful outdoor venue.

OUTwatch LGBTQ Film Festival – Rio Theater, Monte Rio, CA 7:00PM

OUTwatch uses cinema to show the fabulous, rich diversity of our LGBTQ experience.  Discover, remember and imagine while you enjoy the Best of LGBTQ Cinema. Full details at www.OutWatchFilmFest.org

Sunday, June 4:

Unity March & Pride Parade – Downtown Guerneville, CA 11:00AM

The first Pride Parades were radical marches which through the years have evolved into festive celebrations with floats and elaborate costumes. Sonoma County Pride invites you to come join the parade or enjoy watching one of the greatest spectacles in the North Bay Area.

Unity & Pride Celebration Festival – Guerneville Lodge 12:00PM

Featuring Trans Activist Aydian Dowling, DJ Char, singers ‘Mouths of Babes’, the ‘Drag Kings’, Drag Queens and other Entertainment. Enjoy Exhibitors, Eats & Drinks, Towering Redwoods and the Beautiful Russian River.

Sonoma County Pride (SCP) is an all-volunteer non-profit organization dedicated to celebrating and enhancing the lives and well-being of the LGBTQ community and our allies throughout Sonoma County.

For Additional Information visit www.SonomaCountyPride.org or email info@SonomaCountyPride.org.

Food For Thought, which provides nutritional support to those living with HIV and other serious illnesses in Sonoma County, is proud to announce our 22^nd annual Spring Home & Garden Tour on May 28, 2017 from 10 am–5 pm. This highly anticipated event gives ticket buyers exclusive access to several stunning private homes, gardens, and properties within Sonoma County. The 2017 locations celebrate a range of architecture, native plants, unique trees, and succulents. Funds raised by the tour go toward fresh weekly groceries, nutrition education, and a congregate lunch program for FFT’s clientele.

Highlights include: 

The Manzanita Estate has views that are breathtaking in beautiful Montecito Heights, in Santa Rosa.  With an antique rose garden, Japanese garden, fountains, perennial beds, and shade gardens, this is a sure delight to have on our tour!

A renovated 1905 home and garden, this home has been remodeled to integrate the house and urban garden, featuring many succulents in and around a rock garden. There are numerous potted plants that encompass unique plants and flowering varietals.

There will also be an opportunity to tour the food bank, organic gardens, and edible landscape surrounding the Food For Thought headquarters in Forestville as well as the whimsical, wonderful Food For Thought Antiques store in Sebastopol. 

Tickets for the tour are $50 and include a booklet with descriptions of the homes and gardens and a map for the self-guided tour. Homeowners will open their private residences to ticket holders from 10 am to 5 pm on Sunday, May 28.

You can order tickets by phone at (707)887-1647, or by visiting the Food For Thought office in downtown Forestville. Delicious gourmet box lunches from Cottonwood Catering for $15 can be pre-ordered ahead and will be available for pick-up on the day of the event at Food For Thought in Forestville. 

For more information on Food For Thought and the 2017 Annual Spring Home & Garden Tour, please visit www.FFTfoodbank.org.

Seniors are invited to a free, kick-off reception for the countywide LGBT Senior Outreach Project, sponsored by Sonoma County Human Services Department Adult and Aging Division, on Friday, March 24, 2-4 p.m., at the Person Senior Wing of Finley Community Center, 2060 West College Avenue, Santa Rosa.

One goal of LGBT Senior Outreach Project is to identify new opportunities for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender seniors living in Sonoma County to socialize and form supportive connections. At the kick-off reception, the City of Santa Rosa Recreation & Parks Department will showcase current programs offered at local community centers and for LGBT seniors to suggest other programs the City could offer.

City of Santa Rosa Recreation & Parks Department staff recently completed an LGBT cultural competency training made possible by a grant from the LGBTQI Giving Circle Fund of the Community Foundation Sonoma County. The training focused on the difficulties LGBT seniors experience in their communities and strategies for how to ensure they feel welcome at their local senior centers.

“We are excited to host the kick-off event for the LGBT Senior Outreach Project at the beautiful Person Senior Wing. Staff look forward to listening to our citizens discuss additional ways the Recreation & Parks Department can provide programming and activities that encourage and excite participation amongst our diverse community,” said Department Director Nanette Smejkal.

The staff at two other senior centers that will host LGBT Senior events will also attend LGBT cultural competency training — Sebastopol Area Senior Center and Vintage House Sonoma. “We want to ensure that all seniors, including LGBT seniors, feel welcome and valued in Sonoma County,” said Adult & Aging Division Interim Director Gary Fontenot.

For more about the March 24 reception at the City of Santa Rosa Person Senior Wing, contact Joanna Moore at (707) 543-3745 or email jmoore@srcity.org.

The City of Petaluma just passed an It Won’t Happen Here resolution – the only city to do so – as a result of active engagement by Petaluma residents. The City of Sonoma may get a resolution with good wording for the same reason. Undocumented immigrants have gotten some wording they wanted (though flawed) from other cities – because they showed up to demand it, despite the risks. But other threatened groups – religious minorities, people of color, the LGBTQ+ community and others – are missing from the wording of resolutions passed by Santa Rosa, Sebastopol, Windsor and Healdsburg. When only one or two people show up to press for action, sadly, your elected representatives don’t find much reason to act.

If you want your cities and your county to agree to refuse to cooperate with the Trump administration in violating your civil liberties, we ask that you do one or both of these things: write to your city council members and your supervisor and let them know you want to see It Won’t Happen Here wording in a resolution and/or come to a meeting to organize a serious presence at a city council meeting or a Board of Supervisors meeting.

Our next meeting is Wednesday, March 22nd, 7:00 p.m. at the Peace & Justice Center of Sonoma County, 467 Sebastopol Ave. (not Sebastopol Rd.), SR. If you can’t make the meeting, but want to be involved, just let us know and we’ll keep you in the loop.

And don’t rely on the Press Democrat to keep you informed. Reporting – which claims the resolutions passed so far are “similar” – is inaccurate. For instance, Petaluma’s resolution bears no resemblance to Santa Rosa’s.

Below is the wording you want to ask for and be sure to mention that 149 organizations, faith communities and businesses have endorsed the statement, as well as approximately 4,000 individuals.

We hope to see you at a meeting soon!

IT WON’T HAPPEN HERE SONOMA COUNTY

WHEREAS, to safeguard the equal and inalienable rights and inherent dignity of all people that is the foundation of the relationship between a government and the people;

AND whereas, we recognize that the rights and dignity of all people are under threat;

WE, the undersigned organizations, call upon all Sonoma County governing authorities and law enforcement agencies to pledge in writing to protect all of the County’s community members;

FURTHERMORE, we call upon these authorities and agencies to proclaim publicly that they will refuse to cooperate with any demands from the federal government to institute detentions, deportations, registries, conversion therapies, imprisonment or any other acts that target or discriminate based on immigration status, race, ethnicity, religion, country of origin, ability, political affiliation, economic status, age, gender-identity or sexual orientation;

FURTHERMORE, we, the undersigned organizations, in obedience to our consciences, pledge to protect all community members and will support our local governments as they move to resist these undemocratic and un-American practices in order to reaffirm their commitment to inclusivity, respect and dignity.

The Sonoma County Trans community will hold a rally and march in solidarity with all trans youth from 2:30-7 p.m. March 18 at Santa Rosa City Hall. The Civil Rights of trans youth are now at risk after the Trump Administration on Feb. 22 rescinded Obama-era protections that allowed transgender students to use the bathroom of their gender identity.

Title IX, the federal law prohibiting discrimination based on sex, was used as the foundation for President Obama’s executive order. By rescinding this directive, the Trump Administration has put the health, safety and well-being of some of our most marginalized communities at risk.

This march supports all trans youth, including Black, brown, undocumented,sex working, homeless, disabled and many more identities that intersect. Statistics show that Black transgender women and girls bear the brunt of oppressive laws and prejudice that can result in violence and murder.

Please join in helping to spread the word about this march. It is important to give the transgender youth population and their allies in Sonoma County visibility and support.  

A second year of local programs to support lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) seniors, the LGBT Seniors Outreach Project, has begun offering training and events at three local senior centers, while also planning the spring launch of the LGBTQI Senior Information & Assistance Program to increase elders’ access to social services for healthy aging. (LGBTQI = lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, queer and intersex)

“While LGBT seniors face the same challenges of aging as all Sonoma County seniors, they have added concerns resulting from a lifetime of discrimination and lack of recognition of same-sex relationships,” says Sonoma County Board of Supervisors Chairwoman Shirlee Zane. “The Project will better connect underserved LGBT seniors to both helpful local services, including health care and housing, and the broader community.”

“This year, staff at the Finley Person Senior Wing, Sebastopol Area Senior Center and Vintage House Sonoma will be trained on how to ensure that all seniors, including LGBTQ adults, are welcome and valued,” says Adult & Aging Division Interim Director Gary Fontenot.

Each of the three senior centers is planning a welcome event to introduce LBGT seniors to their local center’s activities and supportive programs. The first LGBT Senior Welcome Reception will be Friday, March 24, from 2-4 p.m., at the Finley Person Senior Wing Auditorium, 2060 W. College Avenue, Santa Rosa. For information, call City of Santa Rosa Recreation and Parks Department at (707) 543-3737.

In addition to trainings and welcome events at senior centers, plans are moving forward for the LGBTQI Information & Assistance Program at the Sebastopol Area Senior Center, which will allow LGBT seniors to call or email to get information about helpful community resources and assistance from one central contact.

“Since all our staff members will have been trained in LGBTQI concerns and issues,” says the Center’s Executive Director Linda Civitello, “more LGBT seniors will be comfortable making contact and getting the services needed to improve their lives.”

Given the high senior population in Sonoma County (25% and growing) and data showing that it has the second-highest number of LGBT couples in California (The Williams Institute at the UCLA School of Law), the LGBTQI Giving Circle Fund of the Community Foundation of Sonoma County and the Sonoma County Human Services Department Adult and Aging Division chose to fund expanded LBGT senior support services again this year.

Nancy Flaxman, MSW, and Gary “Buz” Hermes, M.A. also return as content experts for the Outreach Project. Both were part of last year’s programs, helping to build connections between underserved LGBT seniors and mainstream health, housing and social services through training, while offering educational groups to make seniors aware of their options for support.

Because of experiences of discrimination, LGBT seniors are often uncomfortable sharing who they are or seeking services from agencies that may not understand their concerns or were unsafe to access in the past. That worry makes them less likely to seek the support services they now need for healthy aging.

“We could be arrested and put in jail. We could be committed to a psychiatric facility to be ‘cured’ with electric shock therapy,” Flaxman says. “We lost family, friends, jobs, housing and more when our sexual orientation or gender identity was revealed.”

Many LGBT seniors live alone and are less likely to have adult children or connections with other family members for support as they age. Compared to other elders, LGBT seniors are twice as likely to live in poverty, without pension or survivor benefits, and have poor health and inadequate health care.

“Seniors who have lost their life partners worry about who will support them in their later years,” Hermes says. “Bringing these seniors together is part of a growing effort to form a more connected community in our county.”

For more information about the LGBT Seniors Outreach Project, contact the Adult and Aging Division, (707) 565-5900.

Support a great cause by joining Food For Thought and Rialto Cinemas for Academy Night as we present the 89th annual awards ceremony live and on the big screen Sunday, February 26 at 4 p.m.

We have movie trivia contests, wonderful raffle prizes, prizes for best costume from a Best Picture nominee, and a grand prize for the audience member who correctly predicts the most winners!

Tickets on sale starting February 1 at Rialto Cinemas. Buy in person, online, or by phone at (707) 525-4840. Tickets usually sell out, so be sure to buy soon!

Tickets are $30 and include one drink and two appetizers.