A coterie of grand marshals known locally and statewide will head up this year’s San Diego LGBT Pride parade, scheduled for 11:00 a.m., July 30, along University Avenue in Hillcrest. The selections were based on community input culled over the past several months and then approved by Pride’s board of directors.

The eclectic lineup, which includes three individuals and a pair of students from Poway High School, “reflect the good deeds and activism they have brought to our community over the past year,” said San Diego LGBT Pride Executive Director Suanne Pauley.

The 2005 parade grand marshals are:

Michael “Big Mike” Phillips, co-founder of Ordinary Miracles, board member of The Center and member of the LGBT advisory boards for Mayor Dick Murphy and Congressmember Bob Filner, who helped raise $10,000 for the Hillcrest Youth Center, and last year, along with other community activists, re-founded Grocery Hearts for Mama’s Pantry.

Ben Dillingham is a decorated combat veteran of the United States Marine Corps who chairs the AIDS Foundation San Diego and serves on the editorial board of the Gay & Lesbian Times. Dillingham is known for his philanthropic involvement with numerous GLBT organizations. He is the board treasurer of Episcopal Community Services and sits on the San Diego Human Dignity Foundation Finance Committee.

Megan Donovan and Joseph “Joey” Ramelli, former students of Poway High School, will also be honored. After enduring nearly three years of sexual-orientation harassment at Poway High, the pair recently took their case to San Diego Superior Court and won.

Alice A. Huffman, president of the California State Conference of the NAACP, will be honored as a Pride grand marshal for moving her organization to the state level to endorse a resolution in favor of same-sex marriage. The Los Angeles Times called her “one of the most powerful people in California” because of her outspoken, up-front call for equal rights.

This year’s 31st annual Pride celebration, titled “Equal Rights! No More, No Less!” takes place July 29-31. For a complete list of events and entertainment, call the Pride office at (619) 297-7683.

Social marketing campaigns around the world have attempted to stop the spread of HIV by targeting high-risk groups with messages designed to increase awareness and encourage safer behaviors.

Family Health Centers of San Diego’s Gay Men’s Health Program is launching a multi-faceted social marketing campaign on June 20. Print ads will appear in the gay media, on billboards and bus shelters, and in small displays at local businesses and service organizations throughout the Hillcrest and North Park areas. Banner ads and pop-ups will appear in Web sites and Internet chatrooms frequented by San Diego gay men, and a campaign Web site will be launched (visit San Diego News Briefs online at www.gaylesbiantimes.com for a link). Ads will include messages designed to encourage and normalize safer behaviors, while the Web site will include information about HIV, other STDs, the impact of substance use and related San Diego resources, and will serve as a venue for community feedback about the campaign.

The campaign is the culmination of a year-long planning process. The Strategic Planning Team, responsible for guiding the campaign’s development, began meeting in July 2004 and included campaign staff and other local health and social service providers such as the HIV, Hepatitis & STD Branch of the San Diego Health and Human Services Agency, The Center, Stepping Stone of San Diego and the Council of Community Clinics, as well as members of San Diego’s community of men who have sex with men (MSM). “Members worked diligently in an effort to create a campaign that would specifically address the HIV-prevention needs of San Diego’s gay community” said Victoriano Diaz, the campaign’s coordinator.

The San Diego Association of Governments (SANDAG), which serves as evaluator for the campaign, along with the Strategic Planning Team, developed an intensive market research plan that included reviewing existing data and input from local community members through focus groups, key informant interviews and surveys. The team used the findings from this process to identify the key issues to be addressed by the campaign, as well as appropriate media venues.

Two issues that stood out in the findings were the overwhelming lack of disclosure among individuals regarding HIV/STD status prior to having sex, and that significant use of alcohol or drugs prior to having sex was resulting in increased high-risk sexual activities.

“While this information wasn’t news to us, it did provide us with greater and more current insight into the behaviors of San Diego’s gay community, and identified the issues to be addressed by the campaign” Diaz said.

The need for further HIV prevention efforts in San Diego is clear, and unprotected sex between MSM continues to drive the county’s HIV epidemic, coordinators said. Eighty-three percent of the cumulative AIDS cases and 73 percent of recent cases are among MSM, according to San Diego County Department of Epidemiology 2004 data. Other indicators such as rising syphilis rates point to further lapses in safer sex practices among MSM. If the trend continues, San Diego could experience a significant resurgence in new HIV infections.

“This is one of the largest media campaigns ever produced in San Diego targeting gay men,” said Felipe Garcia, programs manager for HIV prevention at Family Health Centers of San Diego. “A campaign of this magnitude is certain to spark much-needed dialogue about HIV and STDs in our community.”

The campaign will host a launch event Monday, June 20, from 12:00 noon to 3:00 pm. at Family Health Centers of San Diego’s HIV Coordinated Services Center, located at 3524 30th St. Call (619) 515-2586 for more information.

On Saturday, June 18, Nissan and Mixture, a modern and contemporary home furnishings and accessories store located in Little Italy’s Kettner Art and Design District, host the second annual “All Day Art” event to support the Art Cart Program and local emerging artists.

The Art Cart Program is designed to support and further arts education in local non-profits, where funding has been drastically reduced, by donating art supplies and recruiting local artists to teach special art classes to San Diego children.

The event runs from 10:00 a.m. to 6:00 p.m., with a portion of the proceeds donated to The Storefront, a homeless youth emergency shelter in San Diego, to purchase art supplies and contribute to their art programs.

Mixture has partnered with The Storefront, a 20-bed emergency shelter, for homeless and runaway youth ages 12-17. The Storefront is a program of San Diego Youth & Community Services, a non-profit organization in operation since 1970. The Storefront’s outreach team builds trust with teens over months, and provides a bridge that helps homeless teens get off the street and into the program. The non-profit assists and requires the teens to go back to school to obtain their GED, or be trained for a job in order to stay at the shelter.

Admission to the All Day Art exhibition is free. Guests will have the opportunity to view and purchase art at the event.

Over 15 local San Diego artists will showcase more than 100 one-of-a-kind pieces of art in the all-day exhibition. Local artists participating in the show include Heather Pieters, Nathan Phelps, Takashi Harada, Valentine Viannay and Heidi Rufeh.

For more information call (619) 239-4788, or visit Mixture, which is located at 2210 Kettner Blvd.

This month’s San Diego PFLAG meeting takes place Monday June 27, at 7:00 p.m. at the First Unitarian Universalist Church, located at 4190 Front St. in Hillcrest.

The San Diego meeting will consist of support groups, followed by a cookie social and a presentation by Freda Leang on binational same-sex couples and their inability to sponsor their partner or be sponsored by their partner for immigration purposes.

Leang will briefly cover some of the experiences and hardships faced by the many binational gay and lesbian couples that she has had the opportunity to meet over the past 12 years. She also has first-hand experience, as she watched her son move out of the United States to continue to be with his partner.

The Carlsbad PFLAG meeting takes place Sunday, June 26, at 2:00 p.m. at Pilgrim United Church of Christ’s Pilgrim Hall, located at 2020 Chestnut St.

Call (619) 579-7640 for more information on both meetings.