SAN FRANCISCO: Real Bad Party Donates $180K To LGBT Community Groups

This year's Real Bad party, the closing event of Folsom Street Fair, raised a record-breaking $180,000 for local LGBT and HIV/AIDS groups. Via press release:

Five selected LGBT health and community service organizations are sharing the funds raised, which include 100 percent of the money collected from general admission ticket sales. The beneficiary organizations are Maitri, the only residential care facility in the Bay Area focusing on the underserved community of those dying of or severely debilitated by AIDS; The National AIDS Memorial Grove, a healing sanctuary that offers, in perpetuity, a public landscape for grieving, gathering and renewal, keeping the human tragedy of AIDS in the forefront of the national consciousness by honoring all lives touched by AIDS; Project Open Hand, a provider of food and nourishment dedicated to improving the lives of people with HIV/AIDS, seniors and the home-bound or critically ill; San Francisco Suicide Prevention, a provider of emotional support, assistance and intervention as necessary to persons in crisis and those impacted by them, without regard to race, age, religion, gender or sexual orientation; and Visual Aid, a provider of crucial services to Bay Area professional artists living with HIV/AIDS, cancer, hepatitis and other life-threatening illnesses, helping to preserve, present and promote their creative work.

Congratulations to the Real Bad team for another fantastic year and to their Production Chairman, Craig Cochran (whom you know as JMG reader Castro Craig.)

Folsom Street Fair's 2010 Poster

Folsom Street Fair has released this year's poster. From their press release:

This year, the official Folsom Street Fair poster was inspired by both the film The Usual Suspects and the 2009 police raids on gay bars like the Atlanta Eagle and The Rainbow Lounge in Ft. Worth, Texas. In light of these recent events, the organization felt it was important that the Folsom Street Fair – and San Francisco – highlight issues of crime and punishment in the community. Folsom Street Events sought to juxtapose the crimes of Wall Street (e.g. Goldman Sachs) against behaviors in the BDSM community which may be punishable in some states. According to Demetri Moshoyannis, Executive Director, “This year’s Folsom Street Fair poster is intended to draw attention to the ongoing discrimination and persecution facing consenting adults who practice BDSM. We are extremely pleased with the outcome of this poster because it maintains the tradition of our trademark cutting-edge commentary on our community within the broader society. We are very much looking forward to producing a fantastic series of internationally renowned events this year.”