Peter Gallagher and Matt Bomer to be feted at 18th Annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards
Posted December 6th, 2011 – Press Releases
On Saturday, February 11, Peter Gallagher and Matt Bomer will each receive an Arts and Activism Award at the 2012 Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards gala, held at the Palm Springs Convention Center, benefiting Desert AIDS Project. They will join host Joan Rivers, entertainers Queen Latifah, Wynonna Judd, Megan Mullally, and David Burnham, as well as an array of other celebrities seated throughout the room.
Gallagher, featured on the December 2011 cover of Palm Springs Life, will receive the 2011 Pioneer Arts and Activism Award in recognition of the time that he has given freely for many years, to help raise hundreds of thousands of dollars for AIDS-related causes. These have included Dine Out LA, the LA AIDS Walk, and the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation Golf Classic. Gallagher has also been an active supporter of The Actors Fund for many years. Among its broad variety of services and programs available to entertainers is the HIV/AIDS Initiative, which is the largest recipient of funds from Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS.
“The only difference between those of us who are able to contribute to The Actors Fund and those of us who desperately need what The Fund provides is luck: there is no difference,” said Gallager. “In a time when so many traditional methods of social assistance are threatened, it’s essential that those of us that can, do something.”
Matt Bomer, star of TV’s “White Collar,” is on Gallagher’s heels as one of the “new generation activists of stage and screen” for causes including HIV/AIDS. After speaking at the opening ceremony of the 2011 AIDS Walk in New York City’s Central Park on May 15, Bomer joined 45,000 others who walked to raise more than $6.2 million for Gay Men’s Health Crisis and 41 other AIDS service organizations in the tri-state area. Just two weeks earlier, he’d also had his walking shoes on to raise money for breast and ovarian cancer research on April 30 at the Revlon Run/Walk for Women from Times Square to Central Park.
As an in-demand actor who is also the father of three children, Bomer strongly supports marriage equality. That’s why, this September, he appeared in a one-night-only staged reading of “8,” the play written by Dustin Lance Black, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of “Milk,” about California’s notorious Proposition 8, which made same-sex marriage illegal. Proceeds from the staged reading, performed at New York’s Eugene O’Neill Theatre benefited the American Foundation for Equal Rights, which funds the fight for full federal marriage equality and supports educational efforts on the freedom to marry nationwide.
Since 1995, the Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards have been honoring the contributions of those who are making a difference in AIDS care, prevention, and research. Each year, they honor local community leaders as well as those in the fields of science and medicine. The gala also honors those who use their celebrity from stage and screen – or elected office – to shine a light on the fact that AIDS is not over and is still a concern, both globally and right here in our own backyard.
Gallagher and Bomer will join the ranks of fellow celebrities, including Ann-Margret, Carol Channing, Kristen Chenoweth, Tyne Daly, Jerry Herman, Senator Ted Kennedy, Judith Light, Bob Mackie, Barry Manilow, Maureen McGovern, Bebe Neuwirth, Rosie Perez, Pauley Perrette, Mary Steenburgen, Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and Dionne Warwick.
Receiving the Arts and Activism Award at the 2002 Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards was Jeanne White, mother of Ryan White, who would have turned 40 years old on December 6. Although he died at the age of 18, just months before Congress passed the Ryan White CARE Act – now called the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program – Ryan White’s legacy lives on through this federal program which has helped to provide essential HIV/AIDS care for thousands of Americans for two decades.
Tickets to the 18th Annual Steve Chase Humanitarian Awards are available online at www.desertaidsproject.org or by calling 760-323-2118, ext 266. You can view the TV spot that will be promoting ticket sales below.
Desert AIDS Project is the organization in our community where people living with HIV and AIDS can receive comprehensive support, including medical care, case management, and social services. D.A.P. also offers free and confidential HIV testing at a number of locations throughout the communities it serves. To learn more about Desert AIDS Project, please call 760-323-2118, visit www.desertaidsproject.org or find them on Facebook, Twitter, and YouTube.
by Bhagyashri Keni