Sterling Goode, a longtime board member of The Attic Youth Center, died Dec. 21 of pancreatic cancer. He was 55.
Goode served as secretary of the board at the LGBT youth organization since 2006 and was a board member since 2003.
Goode was born and raised in the city, having lived in West and North Philadelphia. He graduated from Olney High School in 1971 and earned his bachelor’s degree in political science from Albright University in 1975.
His sister, Brenda, said he considered a career in law, but instead chose to pursue his passion for helping others and began working as a social worker for the city’s Department of Human Services in 1990.
“That’s where he really found his niche,” Brenda said.
In 2006, Goode became a social-service program analyst for the department, a position that allowed him to oversee programs at various DHS-funded agencies in the area.
“When he became a social worker, he saw how much these children suffered and he just had this positive attitude and this energy that really worked in that environment,” Brenda said.
Attic executive director Carrie Jacobs said Goode’s death has hit the organization, and the many youth who looked up to him, hard.
“He was such a great role model for the youth,” Jacobs said. “We’ve had to deal with this as a group, and a lot of the kids have really struggled, and I’ve really struggled.”
Jacobs and Goode co-facilitated a relationships group for LGBT teens that recently launched at The Attic and that Brenda said her brother was very excited about.
“The Attic was really important to him, especially the group about relationships he was involved with,” she said. “He wanted to try to show the young gay and lesbian population that there’s not much of a difference between gay and ‘straight’ relationships and that they were experiencing some of the same problems that everyone goes through. He really enjoyed that.”
Goode was in his own relationship with his partner, Richard Dixon, for 22 years.
“It was love ‘at first sight,’” Dixon said. “I hate to say that because it sounds so cliché, but it really was. We were together almost from the moment we met.”
Dixon said Goode tried to relate his own experiences to the youth involved in the relationships group.
“I think he saw that there are a lot of gay youth out there who, like we did before we met, are just sewing their wild oats and not really looking for relationships because they think that’s all there is for them, but he tried to show them that there’s a lot more out there,” he said.
Dixon and Goode, who lived in South Philadelphia, were active members of St. Mary’s Episcopal Church for the past nine years. Dixon said Goode volunteered in the church’s soup kitchen, served on its Altar Guild and “did pretty much everything he could do” for the church.
Dixon said it was “the community itself” at the church that inspired Goode to give back as much as he did.
“The church community is really what drew us in and kept us here,” he said. “It’s a very loving and open community, and we were openly involved in it.”
Besides his work with youth and the church, Brenda said her brother loved theater and the arts and was an excellent cook.
He also worked off and on for 20 years as a part-time server at Morton’s The Steakhouse, but left last summer after he received his cancer diagnosis.
Goode was an avid traveler, having visited Hawaii, Paris, London and Venice, and Dixon said the two of them traveled to New York City often to take in Broadway shows and visit museums.
“He loved traveling because he just loved life so much,” Brenda said.
She added that, since her brother’s passing, she’s talked to many of his friends about his strength of character.
“Of everyone who’s come up to me to talk about him, they all say he was honest and he was loyal. If he was your friend, he was your friend no matter what.”
In addition to Dixon and Brenda, Goode is survived by his twin sister, Sharon, brothers Joseph, Robert and David and niece Brenda.
A funeral was held Dec. 29 at St. Mary’s, and Goode was buried at Ivy Hill Cemetery on Easton Road.
Memorial contributions in Goode’s name can be made to The Attic Youth Center, 255 S. 16th St., Philadelphia, PA 19102, or to St. Mary’s Church Soup Kitchen, 1831 Bainbridge St., Philadephia, PA 19146.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].