In the last three decades, employees from Montefiore Health System made it a point to join hundreds of people in marching at the Gay Pride Parade in Manhattan.

Teams of hospital employees, decked out in rainbow-colored shirts, would amble along Fifth Avenue in solidarity with members of the LGBTQ community, in which many call Montefiore their go-to hospital or their employer.

This year, and perhaps in perpetuity, a first-ever float bearing the hospital logo will roll out at the festal parade, joining a cavalcade of other floats that send its message of support to the gay community. It also serves as outreach for the hospital’s services specific to the LGBTQ community, including a burgeoning department for transsexuals.

“We really felt that this platform of Manhattan pride that Montefiore as an institution can really promote these services, and let the LGBTQ know that we’re here in the Bronx,” said Justin Toro, LMSW, a clinical social worker at the hospital’s Adolescent AIDS Program.

Toro’s unit partnered with a cadre of departments, including the hospital’s primary care sites, Center for Positive Living, general medicine, urology and plastic surgery, combining funds to purchase the float. Roughly 40 associates will take part in the float, joining 250 guests or hospital employees at the parade.

It’s an initiative with direct support from Dr. Steven M. Safyer, president and CEO of the hospital, who allocated a portion of the funds for the float.

The hospital’s marketing department helped conceive the float’s design, part of an overall awareness campaign on “safe, compassionate, cutting-edge LGBT care,” said Stephen Stafford, ‎director of communications and special projects at the hospital’s Adolescent AIDS Program.

Those efforts also include turning the system into a more transgender-friendly environment, offering “services that are needed for people to have a full spectrum of transition-related services,” according to Dr. Robert Beil, director of the hospital’s Centers Implementing Clinical Excellence & Restoring Opportunity (CICERO). Those services include plastic surgery for patients transitioning to their desired gender identity.

The parade comes on the heels of the Orlando, Fla. shootings, in which a gunman killed 49 people at a gay nightclub, making visibility for gay pride an all-important priority for Montefiore. “There’s still a lot of anti-gay feeling, and we want to come together in happiness and in pride,” said  Dr. Donna Futterman, director of the Adolescent AIDS Program.

The parade kicks off on Sunday, June 26, beginning at noon. It starts at 36th Street and Fifth Avenue in Midtown Manhattan, and ends at Christopher and Greenwich streets in the Chelsea section of Manhattan.

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Welcome to the Norwood News, a bi-weekly community newspaper that primarily serves the northwest Bronx communities of Norwood, Bedford Park, Fordham and University Heights. Through our Breaking Bronx blog, we focus on news and information for those neighborhoods, but aim to cover as much Bronx-related news as possible. Founded in 1988 by Mosholu Preservation Corporation, a not-for-profit affiliate of Montefiore Medical Center, the Norwood News began as a monthly and grew to a bi-weekly in 1994. In September 2003 the paper expanded to cover University Heights and now covers all the neighborhoods of Community District 7. The Norwood News exists to foster communication among citizens and organizations and to be a tool for neighborhood development efforts. The Norwood News runs the Bronx Youth Journalism Heard, a journalism training program for Bronx high school students. As you navigate this website, please let us know if you discover any glitches or if you have any suggestions. We’d love to hear from you. You can send e-mails to norwoodnews@norwoodnews.org or call us anytime (718) 324-4998.