Dumont leaving YFT
By DAVID TAFFET | Staff Writer
Dallas Voice
Youth director’s experience with LGBT youth makes her a perfect fit for program targeting at-risk students at Eastfield College
On June 10, Judith Dumont announced that her last day at Youth First Texas would be this Friday, June 18. She has been director of youth services at the agency for the past 2 1/2 years.
On the night of her announcement, she assured the youth at the center that said she was not going to suddenly disappear from their lives.
“I’m like herpes,” she …

YFT: making safe space safer
By TAMMYE NASH | Senior Editor (Dallas Voice)
May 20,2010
Agency for LGBTQ youth moves to new, larger location, institutes code of conduct for youth, volunteers

SURFING SAFELY | Sam Wilkes and Judith Dumont show off the kitchen and computer area in the new Youth First Texas center. (Tammye Nash/Dallas Voice)

Everybody needs a safe haven now and then. And few people need it more than LGBT and questioning youth trying to find their own identity and navigate through an often-hostile world.
Providing that much-needed safe …

Good things happen to those who wait. I never quite understood this quote until recently when I received a call with an invitation to meet some of the cast from Rupaul’s Drag Race, Season 2. I’ve always been a faithful fan, but never would I have imagined getting to meet the girls, who had performed at Fort Worth’s Rainbow Lounge the night before, and were in Dallas as guests of couture designer Nicolas Villalba.
As four other youth, Wilford Brown, John McKnight, Steven Richmond, and William Morvant, along with a volunteer …

Article and Photo By Tracy Nanthavongsa
DALLAS  – Gay and lesbian youth from Youth First Texas  demonstrated at a silent flash mob Friday at the Rosa Parks Plaza to  honor the National Day of Silence.
With their mouth covered in  duct tape and homemade surgical mask, the youth joined hundreds of  thousands of students nationwide to take a vow of silence to bring  attention to anti-LGBT name-calling, bullying and harassment in their  schools.
The flash mob took place at 5 p.m. in which participants  literally froze in place for five minutes while other …

Youth members of YFT are not keeping silent about the experiences they have had in school where they were bullied, harrassed, and treated as outcasts. In a partnership with Campus Harmony Inc. and Tracy Nanthavongsa Photography, Youth First Texas helped launch the Bully Suicide Project, a photo shoot and PSA that will be shown for national audiences at high schools and colleges over the next year.
It all started thanks to Beaux Wellborn, a YFT Volunteer and the Assitant Director of Campus Harmony Inc. The Dallas Voice Instant Tea Blog shares …

INSTANT TEA – Official Blog of the Dallas Voice – http://www.dallasvoice.com/instant-tea
September 22nd, 2009.

Last night during the North Texas GLBT Chamber of Commerce’s Pride Dinner at the Warwick Melrose Hotel, keynote speaker Cleve Jones issued a challenge: If you can’t make it to the National Equality March in October, send someone in your place.
Shortly after Jones concluded his remarks, six chamber members and/or Pride dinner attendees responded, with each agreeing to pay for one of the local LGBT youth on hand to go to Washington. The six beneficiaries from Youth First …

Youth First Texas threw water balloons and kicked some serious butt during LifeWalk’s Heatwave Waterpalooza! What could possibly be better than raising funds for AIDS Arms Inc., supporting  HIV positive men, women, and children of North Texas?
The object of the game was simple: in a team of 5, eliminate the other team without getting hit! For a full list of the rules, hit up LifeWalk’s official web page.
Our first team was YFT’s ‘Wet Behind the Ears,’ which was the volunteer team (guest starring iLead Team member Giancarlo Mossi). They took 5th place.
Jason …

The racetrack is not a 1.5-mile asphalt oval with a turn radius of 750 feet. It definitely doesn’t have a 2,250-foot long stretch with 45 pit stalls. Nope. With the sweltering summer sun on a cement parking lot, this is not the Daytona 500.
But it is the Gaytona 500 — and racecars aren’t even needed. Well, at least the kind the big boys play with. This is a race where quick fingers matter more than down-shifting a clutch, because these racecars are of the remote control kind.
“It’s gonna be awesome,” …

Volunteering at a youth organization is something many in the LGBT community thrive on. It is in their blood, bones and heart. They know that service work is their calling. They volunteer because the wisdom of their own childhood experiences directs them to a place of need. They know that our LGBT youth need the same help they went without.
Bob Ivancic is just such an example of those that know how important it is to give back. After ten years as a founder and board member of Youth First Texas, …

Four people have been charged with second-degree criminal mischief for vandalizing a gay youth center in Bayshore, N.Y. The four will not be charged with a hate crime despite outcry from public officials as high as Gov. David Paterson.