The Bingo Verifying Divas will don their finest next month for the 11th annual Black-Tie GayBINGO.
This year’s fundraising gala will be held 6:30 p.m. April 9 at the Crystal Tea Room, 100 S. Penn Square, and proceeds will benefit AIDS Fund, which funds HIV/AIDS service organizations throughout the region.
AIDS Fund hosts the monthly GayBINGO, but the black-tie affair is the more formal — equally fun and festive — version. The event will feature dinner, dancing and a silent auction in addition to the six rounds of bingo.
New to this year’s gala will be sponsor El Dorado Rum, which will be served in a specialty signature cocktail as well as at a rum-tasting bar.
Black-Tie GayBINGO also allows AIDS Fund to pay tribute to some of its most committed supporters.
This year, AIDS Fund will present its Founders Awards to WMMR’s Pierre Robert and WXPN’s Michaela Majoun, longtime co-emcees of AIDS Walk Philly, which is run by AIDS Fund.
The agency will also give its Favorite Straight Person of the Year Award to Dorothy Mann, executive director of the Family Planning Council, who is retiring from her post in June after 33 years on the job.
FPC provides financial and other resources to sexual-health agencies throughout the region, and Mann said her interest in this work was originally fueled by her history of activism in both women’s and civil-rights issues in the 1960s.
“Doing that work made me see that everyone deserves access to healthcare, regardless of their income, regardless of their insurance status, regardless of their sexual preference or their age,” she said.
Shortly after Mann took the helm of FPC, she said the HIV/AIDS epidemic began to pick up, and the agency began concentrating its efforts on the hardest-hit communities, primarily gay men. In 2004, the organization incorporated the SafeGuards Project, a comprehensive LGBT health initiative, as one of its programs, and Mann said FPC has continued to expand its HIV/AIDS work into all populations affected by the disease.
“In the early ’80s, HIV was a disease that was associated with gay men,” Mann said. “So we initially did our work there, and then as it moved forward we still stayed active in the gay community but also did work in terms of women and children. But we’ve always been committed to working in the areas of STDs and HIV in the gay community.”
Robb Reichard, AIDS Fund executive director, said Mann has played an active role in the local dialogue on HIV/AIDS for decades.
“Dorothy has been involved with HIV/AIDS issues right from the beginning of the epidemic, and with her retiring this year we thought it was only appropriate to recognize her longtime commitment and leadership in this area,” Reichard said.
Mann said she hasn’t yet experienced a GayBINGO, but is “thrilled” and “deeply touched” to be one of the guests of honor.
She noted that after her retirement, she hopes to serve in an advisory capacity to executive directors at organizations that work with the LGBT community.
“I have 33 years of experience: I’ve made every mistake in the book. But I think I have something to give the next generation, and I hope there will be room to do that,” Mann said. “I’m not going to stop caring just because I won’t have the job anymore; it’s not about the job. The rights of the LGBT community are something I am committed to in my soul. In the future, I want to continue to work hard to be sure that this community has all the rights and privileges of everyone in my straight community.”
Tickets to Black-Tie GayBINGO are $150 and can be purchased by calling (215) 731-9255.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].