GLAA Announces 2007 Distinguished Service Awards
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GLAA Distinguished Service Award Recipients 1990-Present


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Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC
P.O. Box 75265
Washington, D.C. 20013


For Release:
Wednesday, January 24, 2007

Contact: Rick Rosendall
202-667-5139


GLAA Announces 2007 Distinguished Service Awards


The Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington, DC is pleased to announce its 2007 Distinguished Service Award recipients. GLAA presents awards to local individuals and organizations that have served the gay, lesbian, bisexual, and transgender community in the national capital area. The awards will be presented at GLAA’s 36th Anniversary Reception on Thursday, April 19. (Location and other details to be announced.)

GLAA’s 2007 Distinguished Service Award recipients are:

Sheila Alexander-Reid is a longtime community activist and entrepreneur. In 1993 she founded Women in the Life, Inc., a multi-faceted brand including a magazine, event management company, website and non-profit association. The Women in the Life Association is dedicated to improving and enhancing the lives of lesbians of color through advocacy, programs and resource development. In early 2006, the Association launched its signature program, the Wanda’s Will Project, which honors the memory and leadership of the late activist Wanda Alston by sponsoring free legal workshops promoting will execution and estate planning with the special needs of the LGBT community and families in mind.

The DC Appleseed Center for Law and Justice solves problems affecting the daily lives of those who live and work in the D.C. area -- from health care to voting representation to education reform to environmental concerns to jobs and housing. Appleseed works with volunteer attorneys, business leaders and community experts to identify issues, conduct research and analysis, make specific recommendations for reform and advocate effective solutions. Its August 2005 report, HIV/AIDS in the Nation's Capital: Improving the District of Columbia's Response to a Public Health Crisis, was influential in prompting reforms at the Administration for HIV Policy and Programs. Appleseed has released two HIV/AIDS Report Cards since then to track the city’s progress.

Charles C. Francis is a longtime activist whose efforts with the Republican Unity Coalition, dedicated to making homosexuality a non-issue within the Republican Party, won public statements in support of equal rights for gay citizens from then former President Gerald R. Ford and others. In 2006, Francis conceived, organized and led the Kameny Papers Project, with the twin purposes of preserving the personal papers and historic picket signs of gay rights pioneer Franklin Kameny for posterity and obtaining funds for the benefit of Dr. Kameny. Francis obtained a professional appraisal of the historic materials and arranged for their purchase by a group of donors who then gave the papers to the Library of Congress and several of the signs to the Smithsonian Institution. The success of this project could not have been achieved without his creativity, skill, diplomacy and persistence.

Jason Juffras was a longtime staffer for former D.C. Councilmember Kathy Patterson and is now committee clerk for Councilmember Mary Cheh. He has long been relied upon by GLAA and other gay rights advocates in Washington. His reputation as a key Council staffer was built on a long series of GLBT-related bills that he helped research, draft, and shepherd through to passage. The legislation covered a wide array of issues including domestic partnerships, the Office of Human Rights, and the repeal of archaic anti-sex laws. He has also been essential in raising the level of expertise and attention to GLBT concerns in the D.C. Council.

Charles H. Ramsey is the immediate past chief of police of the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department. He began a long and fruitful relationship with GLAA on the day of his appointment in 1998 by requesting the first of many regular meetings. In 2000, he authorized the establishment of the Gay and Lesbian Liaison Unit (GLLU). A year later, he increased the unit’s standing and effectiveness by giving it full police powers and putting a sergeant (Brett Parson) in charge of it. Since then, GLLU has been invaluable not only for its extensive community outreach but by bringing sensitivity and specialized understanding to numerous criminal investigations. Chief Ramsey included representatives of GLAA and other civil rights groups on his Community Policing Task Force. He won national attention and praise for instituting training for police officers in the history and lessons of the Holocaust in cooperation with the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum.

Kenneth L. Saunders is the immediate past Director of the D.C. Office of Human Rights (OHR). He met regularly with GLAA after he was appointed by Mayor Anthony Williams in June 2003. Under his leadership, OHR streamlined the adjudication process; significantly cut the agency’s ten-year backlog of aged cases through the issuance of Letters of Determination; administered the Language Access Act; began the first Fair Housing Academy in partnership with the Department of Housing and Urban Development; and educated the public on D.C. Human Rights Act protections through community outreach activities. With an extensive background in civil rights law, Mr. Saunders raised the bar for the agency’s staff and brought OHR to the national forefront in adjudication and advocacy of human rights.

A list of previous award winners can be found on the GLAA website at www.glaa.org/resources/awardshistory.shtml.

Founded in 1971, the Gay and Lesbian Activists Alliance of Washington (GLAA) is an all-volunteer, non-partisan, non-profit political organization that defends the civil rights of lesbians and gay men in the Nation’s Capital. GLAA lobbies the DC Council, monitors government agencies, educates and rates local candidates, and works in coalitions to defend the safety, health, and equal rights of gay families. GLAA remains the nation's oldest continuously active gay and lesbian civil rights organization.

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