Dignity, San Francisco April 1998
Co-chairs’ Report
A YEAR To Be Thankful For
March 15th marked our first year in office as your co-chairs. It has been both a challenging and rewarding year for both of us as we witnessed the ups and downs of being the leaders of our community. We will, however, focus on the love and goodness that is still ever present in the chapter. This issue of the Dignity Spirit is dedicated with thanks to all of you who made Dignity-San Francisco worth leading!
Our chapter is alive and well because of the dedication of those in various ministries including, but not limited to the Worship and Liturgy group (planning committee, presiders, ministers of music, the Word, Eucharist and environment, greeters and ushers), Membership committee, Finance committee, the Defenders (our outreach to the leather/levi community), Spiritual Life committee and the 25th Anniversary Steering Committee.
Our chapter is also nurtured through the various support groups and activities, including the People of Color Support Group, Couples Support Group, the Defenders, Small Faith Sharing Groups, the Cursillo Movement and its Fourth Day Groups, Second Sunday Community Supper, Social Events and Gatherings.
BOARD OF DIRECTORS
Last, but not least, we would like to express our gratefulness to our Board of Directors, both past and present for their vision and leadership, but most especially to the Board who served faithfully and dedicatedly with us this past year. To our Secretaries, Toshi Kawaguchi and later Raul Salazar-Puente, our Treasurer, Jim Remer and our Directors at large: Vickie Valencia, John Chavez, J. Bielanski, Mark Molina, and to Peggy Dalton and Richard Clinton who vacated their posts for personal reasons.
A warm welcome goes to our newly elected Board Members: Mark Molina (Treasurer), Jim Remer (Secretary), Vickie Valencia ( 2nd term At Large Member), and Jaime Gutierrez (At Large Member).
For a chapter of 148 members, we certainly do a lot and we thank you all for making things happen at D/SF.
ET CETERA...
25th Anniversary Plans
The chapter has a very busy 1998 as we celebrate our Silver Anniversary! By now, you must have received your invitation to our 25th Anniversary Liturgy, April 19, and Gala Buffet Dinner/Dance, April 25. If you haven't sent in your RSVP card yet, please do so before April 3rd, in order to make the committee task a little easier. Remember, if you cannot afford the $50 fee, contact one of the co-chairs or the treasurer ASAP. Our chapter has waited 25 years to celebrate this event. We want everyone there. You do not want to miss this piece of history in our chapter's life.
Speaking of the Gala Event, we have booked the El Dorado Room of the Cathedral Hill Hotel for our celebration, which was the site of many a wonderful Pax et Bonum events and the 1989 Dignity/USA Convention.
...In order to maintain the special character of our Gala celebration, we will not give out our traditional Pax et Bonum Awards this year. Instead, we will honor our founders with a special salute. Moreover, Jallen Rix, will entertain us. His talent can be experienced via his recording album, "the Sacred and the Queer." His album will be available during our Gala.
Annual Co-chairs’ Awards
And because we have suspended our Pax et Bonum Awards, your co-chairs decided to return to the practice of presenting the co-Chairs’ Awards during our Annual Community Meeting and Election Night. On March 15th we honored Toshi Kawaguchi and Jim Remer for their exemplary stewardship to this Chapter through the years. Congratulations and Thank You to both Jim and Toshi!
Our Own Website
We have something special to celebrate, the grand opening of a new DIGNITY Website. Due to the efforts of leaders in the Dignity Pacific Region and the generosity of Lanz Communications, San Diego’s gay owned Internet Server, Pacific Region has acquired complimentary space on their computer. Try it out, www.Dignitypacific.org/sanfrancisco.
STEWARDSHIP
Stewardship Sunday was a chance for all of us to re-commit to our cause and mission as Dignitarians. The Board of Directors hosted a St. Patrick's Day traditional supper as a way to get the chapter to talk as a community and to plan where we should be going as we enter the next century. We would like to thank those who have turned in their blue pledge card of time, talent and treasure. If you haven't turned in your pledge, it's not too late to turn it in. We need your help of time, talent and or treasure to continue to succeed.
TITHING
Speaking of Stewardship, our community has traditionally tithed 10% of its Sunday collection as our way of being a good steward to the greater glbt community. This year, The tithing committee with approval from the board of directors has allocated over two years of the chapter’s tithing fund in the amount of $5,650 for disbursement to various community organizations. Our recipients this year are:
- $1500 - Sr. Eileen DeLong Endowment Fund - to assist religious women and men to attend Dignity/USA's biennial conventions.
- $500- AIDS Emergency Fund and $500- Filipino Task Force on AIDS- both provide community resources for education and prevention of AIDS in the glbt community
- $500 - Dolores Street Community Service -provides resource, housing and advocacy for homeless people of color.
- $500 -Dolores Street New Stone Project - to assist with efforts to rebuild on the site of the burned out Dolores Street Church, a previous Dignity /SF home.
- $200 - AIDS Project of the East Bay - education and resource for the East Bay Community.
- $200- LYRIC(Lavender Youth Recreation and Information Center)- outreach to GLBT Youth.
- $200-Lyon Martin Women's Health Services -education and resource for women's health.
- $200-Most Holy Redeemer AIDS Support Group - outreach to our sisters and brothers at MHR.
- $200- Richard Olsen's HIV Massage Ministry - to support the personal outreach by one of Dignity's own members.
- $200- Project Open Hand- a community food resource for basic human need.
- $100 each for membership has been made to the following organizations as part of Dignity/SF 's commitment to Social Justice:
Call To Action, Catholics for Contraception, GLAAD (SF Bay Area), Human Rights Campaign, The Interfaith Alliance, National Catholic AIDS Network, National Gay and Lesbian Task Force, WATER, and the Women's Ordination Conference.
- $50 - for membership has also been made to Catholics Speak Out.
...until our next issue, may God continue to bless us with a voice of challenge and a movement of change. Amen.