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Grant To Provide Guilford Students Access To LGBTQ-Themed Books

GSAFE Greensboro has been awarded funding to help put grade-level appropriate LGBTQ books in more than 100 Guilford County schools. KERI BROWN/WFDD

A gay advocacy group in the Triad has received a grant to help give local students access to LGBTQ-inclusive books. It's among the programs being funded by the Guilford Green Foundation.

GSAFE Greensboro is a chapter of the national Gay Straight Alliance For Safe Schools. The group has been awarded $5,000 to help put grade-level appropriate LGBTQ books in more than 100 Guilford County schools.

The News and Record reports the money is part of $30,000 in grants recently announced by Guilford Green. The foundation is dedicated to funding grassroots organizations that advance equality and inclusion for LGBTQ communities.

The funding for GSAFE comes on the heels of a national survey. It found less than half of LGBTQ youth said they could find relevant books or information in their school library.

Other grant recipients include the FaithAction International House, which helps LGBTQ immigrants coming to the area. Guilford Green has also provided funding for Senior Resources of Guilford, an agency focusing on the problem of loneliness that affects elder members of the gay community.

Neal Charnoff joined 88.5 WFDD as Morning Edition host in 2014. Raised in the Catskill region of upstate New York, he graduated from Sarah Lawrence College in 1983. Armed with a liberal arts degree, Neal was fully equipped to be a waiter. So he prolonged his arrested development bouncing around New York and L.A. until discovering that people enjoyed listening to his voice on the radio. After a few years doing overnight shifts at a local rock station, Neal spent most of his career at Vermont Public Radio. He began as host of a nightly jazz program, where he was proud to interview many of his idols, including Dave Brubeck and Sonny Rollins. Neal graduated to the news department, where he was the local host for NPR's All Things Considered for 14 years. In addition to news interviews and features, he originated and produced the Weekly Conversation On The Arts, as well as VPR Backstage, which profiled theater productions around the state. He contributed several stories to NPR, including coverage of a devastating ice storm. Neal now sees the value of that liberal arts degree, and approaches life with the knowledge that all subjects and all art forms are connected to each other. Neal and his wife Judy are enjoying exploring North Carolina and points south. They would both be happy to never experience a Vermont winter again.

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