The staff and supporters of SAGE—now known officially as Services and Advocacy for Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Elders—gathered at the LGBT Community Center in Manhattan on May 24 to bid a fond farewell to Terry Kaelber, the group’s executive director, after nine years of service, relatively long in the LGBT social service field. During his tenure, the staff and budget for the organization quadrupled.
“You have helped make SAGE one of the key LGBT organizations in the city,” said Larry Chanen, the board chair. Kaelber is will be succeeded by Michael Adams, an attorney who most recently has been the director of education and public affairs at Lambda Legal, the gay public interest law organization.
Kaelber was joined at the reception by his partner, David Buckel, a staff attorney at Lambda Legal, and their daughter Hannah Broholm-Vail who they co-parent with Rona Vail and Cindy Broholm.
“Imagine a world in which GLBT elders are recognized as bringing unique gifts to society,” said Kaelber, who started with SAGE as a volunteer in 1995. “Imagine a gay community that honors its history and herstory.”
In the commemorative journal for the event, Kaelber thanked SAGE’s members for “the gift of the future by teaching me that aging as a gay man is not something to be feared, but rather is a time of life filled with great promise and possibility.”
City Councilwoman Maria del Carmen Arroyo, chair of the Committee on Aging, presented Kaelber with an official proclamation, citing his development of SAGE’s retirement community initiative and national conferences on aging in the LGBT community.
Howard Leifman, the president of SAGE’s board, noted that Kaelber was a delegate to the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, “the first time a leader of the GLBT organization was selected to represent GLBT seniors at this once-a-decade gathering.”
—Andy Humm
gaycitynews.com
