The Frank Fund

THE FRANK FUND:
Supporting LGBT people seeking treatment for addiction

On December 16, 2013, Frank Goldberg - a much-loved LGBT activist from Buffalo - went missing. Frank is a loving and strong person, and she is valued deeply by the people in her life as a sister, an uncle, a friend and a lover. Frank is both gruff and gentle, able to hold the hard and rough edges of life with a tender hand. She loves taking care of animals, and she can talk endlessly about her two cats: Monkey and Tort. Frank is proudly gender-queer. She has a masculine gender presentation, but she intentionally and explicitly chooses to use the pronoun “she.” She has been an activist and an advocate in the LGBT community for many years, helping to build a transgender support group at Buffalo’s Pride Center, which has been a valuable space of support and community for dozens of people. She also has a long history of providing addiction counseling and services within a harm reduction framework. Besides her formal role as an activist, Frank is a community-builder, making shy people feel welcome and warmly embracing people who often felt like they were on the outside. And Frank takes care of the people in her community. During the search efforts to find Frank, several people told us things like, “I’m here because - if I were missing - Frank would be leading the search effort to find me.”

After spending seven years in recovery from alcoholism, Frank spent much of 2013 struggling with a particularly difficult relapse. Though she tried, she had a difficult time finding quality, LGBT-friendly recovery services in Buffalo. She eventually had to leave the city and go to Portland, Oregon to access recovery support that respected her sexuality and her experiences. She returned home to Buffalo for a holiday visit in mid-December. She had a bumpy re-entry, relapsing at the end of her first weekend. Though she made efforts to make a recovery plan, she was in an emotionally dark place that Monday night. She disappeared, leaving a vague note and taking almost nothing with her. Her family and community turned the city upside down looking for her, hoping that love and hard work would bring her home. Tragically, we haven’t been able to find any sign of her since she disappeared that night. While we don’t know what happened to her, we want to publicly honor her life and her struggles so that - wherever she is - she can feel how deeply she is loved and valued by her community.

This fund is being set up to in that spirit. The Frank Fund will provide scholarships for other LGBT people who are also struggling with addiction and who need financial support to access quality recovery support and services. Our brothers and our sisters, our butches and our queens who are struggling with addiction deserve the support they need to recover.

Note: The Fund will be administered by the Astraea Lesbian Fund for Justice. If you are making a donation of more than $500, please contact us directly.   Thank you.