Local organizations are partnering to present a special candlelight vigil in remembrance of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) young people who have taken their lives as the result of bullying, harassment and depression.

The “It Gets Better” Charlotte vigil will be held at Holy Trinity Lutheran Church, 1900 The Plaza, at 7:30 p.m. on Oct. 11, 2010. The date is significant: it is National Coming Out Day, an international day of both celebration and remembrance for LGBT people.

Throughout September, news-media across the country reported on a rash of gay teen suicides, among the Rutgers University student Tyler Clementi. Tyler leaped to his death off the George Washington Bridge after his roommate filmed him in an intimate encounter with another male student and broadcast it over the internet.

According to CampusProgress.org, other reported suicides included 15-year-old Justin Aaberg, a student in Minnesota’s Anoka-Hennepin schools, Billy Lucas, a 15-year-old Indiana high school student who was found dead Sept. 7, and 13-year-old Houston student Asher Brown, who shot himself on Sept. 21. On Sept. 26, 13-year-old Seth Walsh hanged himself from a tree in the backyard of his California home. Last week, the nation also learned of 19-year-old Johnson & Wales University student Raymond Chase, who hanged himself in his Providence, R.I., dorm room on Sept. 29.

“The tragedies highlighted by national news media last month are real life examples of the long-documented trends we’ve seen in anti-gay bullying, harassment and youth risk,” Steve Bentley, executive director of the LGBT youth service and support group Time Out Youth, said in a release this week. “We work with local youth every day, and rest assured: these issues are just as important here in Charlotte as they are anywhere in the nation. Our local youth face many of the same issues and same risks.”

Mecklenburg County Commissioners Chair Jennifer Roberts is scheduled to speak at the vigil, along with Greenville, S.C.-resident Elke Kennedy, whose son, Sean, was killed in an anti-gay hate crime in 2007. Young people will also speak.

Groups partnering to present the vigil include: Campus Pride, Gay Men’s Chorus of Charlotte, Holy Covenant United Church of Christ, One Voice Chorus, PRIDE JWU Charlotte, Queer Rising QC, Sean’s Last Wish, Time Out Youth and UNC-Charlotte PRIDE. Other organizations are also expected to join in on the effort.

Want to help spread the word? Send out a tweet and include the #getsbetterCLT hashtag and invite people to RSVP on Facebook: http://snipr.com/19uyxx

Metrolina AIDS Project’s offices at 127 Scaleybark Rd; photo: Matt Comer

On Oct. 23, the board of Metrolina AIDS Project (MAP) announced they’d voted to shut down the nearly 25-year-old HIV/AIDS service organization. Over at my day job as editor of Q-Notes, Charlotte’s LGBT newspaper, I was frantically trying to keep up with the story as it broke last week.

There’s no need to go into the details of the closure here. That’ll surely play out in local media in the days to come. Further, the nitty-gritty of the who, what, when and why leading to the organization’s closing are likely not of much concern for many of Charlotte’s HIV-positive individuals and their families. I can imagine that their most pressing concern will be what they’ll do and where they’ll turn once MAP finally ceases operations — a date that has not yet been determined.

Founded by six gay men in the height of the AIDS crisis in 1985, MAP grew in size, budget and services to become the area’s largest AIDS service organization —  the single-most important source of support and case management for people living with virus. Filling the void left by MAP’s departure will prove a difficult challenge for all sorts of organizations and leaders across Mecklenburg County.

Although there are several businesses in the area offering case management and HIV/AIDS treatment, only one other non-profit organization, the Regional AIDS Interfaith Network (RAIN), is offering the same sort of case management for which MAP had become the go-to local organization. The Regional HIV/AIDS Consortium offers testing, counseling and support. Belmont’s House of Mercy offers housing and intensive medical care to those living with advanced AIDS.

And while it is great the community has other resources, especially RAIN, you kind of have to wonder if these groups will be able to take in and adequately care for all of MAP’s displaced clients.

The Rev. Debbie Warren, RAIN’s executive director, told Q-Notes that her organization was preparing for an influx of new clients and strategizing on how best to keep folks from falling through the cracks.

“We’d certainly not like to see any big gaps,” she said, adding that her organization had already discussed with the county health department their “willingness to work with the health department and the HIV/AIDS staff members over there in any way that is needed to help respond to the consumers who are going to be needing to move their services over to RAIN or to the health department or to another organization in town.

Unfortunately, I see the bulk of responsibility likely falling on the shoulders of the Mecklenburg County government. MAP’s closure couldn’t come a worse time for clients, other non-profit groups or county agencies. In our current economic downtown, everyone is facing tighter budgets and reduced spending.

It’ll be interesting to see how the MAP closure is dealt with by local elected officials, health department officials, non-profit leaders, LGBT community organizations and area businesses serving those with HIV and AIDS.