| From This Week In Texas Financial
he call centers will each be named The Randy Stone Call Center in memory of
Randy Stone, one of the nonprofit’s founders and the Academy Award-winning producer of the short film
Trevor, who passed away unexpectedly earlier this year. The campaign will be the centerpiece of the keynote address at the organization’s seventh annual New York City gala, scheduled to be held this evening at the Millennium Theatre. Currently, the helpline is maintained by a call center based at Trevor’s Los Angeles headquarters and a second based at the San Francisco Suicide Prevention Center. The goal of the new fundraising campaign is to raise monies sufficient to fully fund and operate the Los Angeles call center and to open and operate a new call center in New York. The funding would enable the two call centers to be open 24 hours a day with a full staff of helpline counselors. A related campaign goal is to provide funding for counselor training workshops that will graduate 25 new counselors each quarter. In support of this initiative and to honor Stone’s memory and spirit, his close friend, Academy Award-winning actress
Jodie Foster, has kicked off the call center campaign with a major gift, the largest in the organization’s history. Foster has been joined in this effort by Stone’s brother,
Jeffrey R. Stone, as well as by philanthropists
Ray and
Dagmar Dolby,
Paul Reitz and
David Rosen,
Henry van Ameringen and
Bryan Bantry. To date, the generosity of these individuals has enabled Trevor to achieve nearly half of its campaign’s goal. “This campaign is an integral component of our strategy to enhance Trevor’s infrastructure and significantly raise our ability to help those who need our services most: desperate gay and questioning youth,”
Charles Robbins, executive director of The Trevor Project, said in a release. “We are encouraged by—and enormously grateful for—the extraordinarily generous gift Jodie has made during the early phase of this endeavor. We cannot think of a more fitting tribute to our beloved colleague and friend than to continue to keep the Helpline open and, in doing so, to meet the overwhelming need of our nation’s youth.” “I feel so lucky to have had a best friend like Randy Stone, the funniest guy I’ve ever known,” added Foster. “He was talented, passionate, supportive, and as big as life. He brought all his beautiful energy to The Trevor Project, which has done such meaningful work on behalf of gay and questioning youths. The call center campaign’s impact will continue the Trevor mission in Randy’s honor just as he would have wanted. I am proud to continue my support of Trevor in memory of my dearest friend. He is missed.” The helpline, which receives thousands of calls each year, assists gay and questioning youth who are in crisis and is also a resource for those seeking information on how to help these individuals, including family members, educators and friends. Calls made to the helpline are free, confidential and handled by highly skilled counselors who are required to undergo extensive and rigorous training. “In preventing young people from committing suicide, Trevor provides a vital and literally lifesaving service,” said Jeffrey Stone, brother of Randy Stone. “The organization is certainly one of Randy’s most important legacies and it is my profound hope that the early gifts that have been made to the fundraising campaign will inspire others to lend their support to this critically important cause.” For more information about The Trevor Project or to make a donation, please visit
www.TheTrevorProject.org. |
