The 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit will take place Friday-Tuesday, Aug. 14-18, at the Chicago Hilton and Towers, 720 S. Michigan, and will cover a multitude of topics, including activism, elder issues and even meditation. Windy City Times talked with one of the summit's main organizers, Jim Pickett ( pictured ) , about the upcoming event.
Windy City Times: Tell me about the planning of this event. I assume it started after the previous summit ended [ in Philadelphia, Penn. in 2007 ] .
Jim Pickett: [ Laughs ] Actually, yeah. A number of Philadelphia people kind of cornered me one morning at the continental breakfast and [ asked ] , "What do you think of Chicago hosting the summit next time?" I said, "That's a really great idea but I can't speak for Chicago," so I came back and worked to pull together a coalition. So we have key partners involved, like the health department [ Chicago Department of Public Health ] , Howard Brown Health Center, AIDS Foundation [ of Chicago ] , Test Positive Aware Network, Center on Halsted, etc. We wanted to make sure that they were on board and were willing to do some of the heavy lifting. Serious organizing for this summit began in earnest in November.
Also read Health Summit Approaches in the August 6 edition of the Chicago Free Press.
Learn more about the 2009 National LGBTI Health Summit - check out the program and register!
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