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San Francisco Columbarium to Display Sections of the AIDS Quilt
Cleve Jones to Speak at Day of Remembrance Ceremony
San Francisco, CA- (March 6, 2007) - The San Francisco Columbarium will display sections of the historic AIDS Memorial Quilt from March 6th - 30th, 2007. Along with special guest speaker, human rights activist and creator of the AIDS Quilt, Cleve Jones, The Columbarium will host a Day of Remembrance including a candle lighting and a reading of names commemorating those lost to the AIDS epidemic. The ceremony will take place on Friday, March 9th, 2007 from 2 p.m. - 4 p.m.
To begin the month-long display of panels from the largest community art project in the world, Nobel Peace Prize Nominee Jones, will speak about the origins of The AIDS Memorial Quilt.
"We at The San Francisco Columbarium are honored to bring Cleve Jones and his incredible creation, The AIDS Quilt, into The Columbarium because we share the same vision.", said Matt Outcalt, The Columbarium's Family Service Director. "So many of our niches tell the same stories as those shared in The AIDS Quilt."
The Neptune Society of Northern California, owner of The San Francisco Columbarium, chose to display the sections of the AIDS Quilt in its ornate and magnificent rotunda as part of its philosophy to preserve, care for, and celebrate life as creatively as possible.
The Columbarium is the only active public cemetery in San Francisco. For over a century, The San Francisco Columbarium has been a final resting place for thousands of San Franciscans because it provides an opportunity for creative personalized niches
Activist Cleve Jones founded the AIDS Quilt in June of 1986, as a permanent memorial to humanize the AIDS epidemic, to heighten awareness of HIV and AIDS, and prompt action in the fight against it. The ever-expanding AIDS Memorial Quilt is made up of over 45,000 individual Quilt panels telling the life stories of men, women, and children around the world lost to AIDS.
The AIDS Memorial Quilt will be on display in the beautifully restored Victorian Rotunda.
Each block of panels will hang magnificently from the towering pillars supporting this historic landmark.
On March 9th Cleve Jones, the creator of the AIDS Quilt, will speak alongside panels of his incredible creation.
About The Neptune Society of Northern California
Founded in 1973, The Neptune Society of Northern California provides a range of services and offers unique options to match individual personalities. With a firm belief in diversity, The Neptune Society attracts people from all walks of life, faiths, philosophies, ethnic backgrounds and lifestyles. Owning and operating its own crematories, The Neptune Society of Northern California has twelve locations throughout the Bay Area and Sacramento Valley. Neptune's prized location is The San Francisco Columbarium, purchased in the 1980's. This formerly abandoned historical treasure has been restored near to its original state dating back to the 1890's, and is considered a San Francisco landmark.
www.neptune-society.com
For more information or to schedule an interview with a representative from The San Francisco Columbarium, please contact Sabrina Modellas at 818.257.7222 or sabrina@iceboxadvertising.com
CLEVE JONES
Cleve Jones, founder of The NAMES Project AIDS Memorial Quilt, was born in West Lafayette, Indiana in 1954.
Cleve's career as an activist began in San Francisco during the turbulent 1970s when he was befriended by pioneer gay rights leader Harvey Milk. Following Milk's election to the San Francisco Board of Supervisors, Cleve worked as a student intern in Milk's office while studying political science at San Francisco State University. Harvey Milk and San Francisco Mayor George Moscone were assassinated on November 27, 1978, and Cleve dropped out of school to work in Sacramento as a legislative consultant to California State Assembly Speakers Leo T. McCarthy and Willie L. Brown, Jr.
In 1982, Cleve returned to San Francisco to work in the district office of State Assemblyman Art Agnos. He was elected to three terms on the San Francisco Democratic County Central Committee and served on local and state commissions for juvenile justice and delinquency prevention and the Mission Mental Health Community Advisory Board. One of the first to recognize the threat of AIDS, Cleve co-founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation in 1983.
Cleve Jones conceived the idea of the AIDS Memorial Quilt at a candlelight memorial for Harvey Milk in 1985 and created the first quilt panel in honor of his close friend Marvin Feldman in 1987. Since then, the AIDS Memorial Quilt has grown to become the world's largest community arts project, memorializing the lives of over 85,000 Americans killed by AIDS. Independent affiliates of the NAMES Project are currently operating in 50 countries around the world, including Canada, South Africa, France, Holland, Spain, Brazil, Mexico, Cuba, Australia, Taiwan and Russia.
A dynamic and inspiring public speaker, Cleve travels extensively throughout the United States and around the world, lecturing at high schools, colleges and universities. He has met with heads of state, including Presidents George Bush and Bill Clinton and former South African President Nelson Mandela. In 1989, Cleve was awarded Honorary Doctorates from Haverford College and the Starr King School for the Ministry. He has also received numerous awards from AIDS and gay rights organizations, religious conferences, state and national health associations and the legislatures of California, Indiana and Massachusetts.
On December 1, 1999, Cleve Jones was a keynote speaker at the opening of the Parliament of World Religions in Cape Town, South Africa, where AIDS Memorial Quilt panels from South Africa and the United States were displayed. In 2000, Cleve helped organize an 8-city US tour of the South African AIDS Memorial Quilt with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus and Ms. Coretta Scott King.
Cleve Jones has served as a member of the International Advisory Board of the Harvard AIDS Institute, the National Board of Governors of Project Inform and the Board of Directors of the Foundation for AIDS and Immune Research. His best-selling memoir, Stitching a Revolution, was published by HarperCollins in April 2000. Cleve's work has been featured on 60 Minutes, Nightline, Charlie Rose, Good Morning America, Oprah, National Public Radio and many other television and radio programs.
Cleve Jones currently lives in Palm Springs, California and works as an organizer for UNITE HERE, the international union representing textile, hotel and restaurant workers.
www.clevejones.com
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