Insuring that the Beautiful Mosaic of Southold Town Continues to be Chatoyant

The Anti-bias Task Force Pays Homage to One of Southold Town’s

Most Illustrious Citizens.

Plus

A Word or Two

About Our Frank LePre Diversity Resources Centers.

The Southold Town Anti-bias Task Force [ABTF] wishes to take this opportunity to salute a valued member of our community, the late Mr. Frank LePre, and honor his memory by establishing Frank LePre Diversity Resources Centers in all the schools on the North Fork.

Frank LePre, wrote the ABTF vice-chairperson Merle Levine in 2003, "had an unerring sense of finding any person in distress, any person suffering pain or injustice, any person-- young or old-- who needed a helping hand," and assisting them toward resolving problems and improving their lives. He made our society, continued Ms Levine, a more "welcoming and succoring place for everyone" because he "had a gift for seeing the beauty and strength" in all. LePre, indeed, was "the backbone of our Anti-bias Task Force."

"We practically live in Camelot, with people owning two or three houses," spoke LePre to a local journalist in 1999, "and yet there’s still terrible poverty around us." He said those words during one of his skirmishes: an effort to find a home in our municipality for a local family and a 10-year old boy who had been turned out of a rundown shack near the Southold Town Dump because it had been declared unfit for habitation and demolished. Sadly, the boy and his guardian great-grandparents were simply left on a waiting list for local housing for over a year. The closest temporary public shelter the great-grandparents could find was at an old motel in Southampton, while LePre not only took the boy in so he could continue at his usual school, but cared for his worsening medical problems. The family finally had to be relocated out of state.

As we at the ABTF wished to continue the late Frank LePre’s legacy of pursuing goodness and justice, we created a Frank LePre Diversity Resource Center in each of the schools in Southold Town. Over time the ABTF hopes to enlarge and update each and every educational institution’s repository of diversity cultivation materials for teachers and students alike.

These resources may include instructional staples for educators, and books (as well as other media) for students K-through-12, supported partially by the ABTF with supplemental funds being donated by the public.

In LePre’s honor, in October of 2002 the ABTF’s education subcommittee held an interactive workshop at the Cutchogue East Elementary School to discuss the various heterogeneity-promoting assets purchased through previously donated money collected by the ABTF. This successful gathering allowed us to meet with area teachers and discuss diversity education. During Martin Luther King Day in 2003 the ABTF raised over $600 for the expressed aim that our schools can then expand their own trove of incalculably important primers. That is, books we hope will foster respect and tolerance, and advocate unity, rapport, understanding, and acceptance-- in addition to fighting bias, bigotry, and prejudice in Southold Town. Yet we still need your help.

We hope you will join us in remembering Frank LePre and his commitment to young people, learning, fairness, and justice.

Written by Keith Douglas Griffith