Rose Greene | |
---|---|
Born | 1946 Los Angeles, California |
Died | July 11, 2019 (age 72) Duarte, California |
Occupation(s) | Activist, financial planner |
Known for | co-chair, board of directors, Los Angeles LGBT Center |
Notable work | AIDSRide |
Rose Greene (1946 – July 11, 2019) was an American activist and financial planner based on Los Angeles. She is remembered for organizing and launching a major fundraiser for HIV/AIDS care, the California AIDS Ride, a 545-mile bike ride along the coast of California.
Rose Greene was born in Los Angeles. Her father owned a cement company. Her mother died when she was a girl. Greene graduated from Fairfax High School in 1964,[1] and then earned a bachelor of fine arts at California State University, Northridge.[2] She pursued further studies in finance at the University of Southern California.[3]
Greene taught high school briefly, and became a financial planner who specialized in advising clients and non-profit organizations in the gay and lesbian community.[3] She served as co-chair of the board of directors of the Los Angeles LGBT Center from 1989 to 1995, and from 2006 to 2011.[4][5][6] “I watched her become more and more of a leader, more and more of an advocate for the Center, and more and more outspoken and militant,” recalled Torie Osborn, the executive director of the Center.[3] In 1992, Greene chaired the search committee for Osborn's successor, the Center's current executive director, Lorri Jean.[7]
Greene headed the capital campaign for the Center's headquarters in the McDonald/Wright Building in Hollywood, opened in 1992, and oversaw development of the Center's Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic, opened in 1993. She organized the first California AIDS Ride in 1994, a seven-day bicycle tour of the California coast from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The Ride has been a major successful fundraiser for HIV/AIDS research, prevention, and care in the decades since, and a model for similar events elsewhere.[2] It is now known as the AIDS/LifeCycle.[8]
Greene was a founding member of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood.[9] She married Helena Ruffin in 2008. Greene died from bone cancer in 2019, in Duarte, California, aged 72 years.[2]