Erinn Furey
Luckily for us, Erinn Furey couldn´t decide between music and social work-so she does both. A licensed social worker at Pride for Youth on Long Island, Furey uses creative arts to fuel both therapeutic work and program development with LGBTQ youth. In her 15 years of experience empowering disenfranchised youth, Furey founded a creative literacy program for shelter youth, facilitated a youth-driven Haitian earthquake relief effort, and made it to the semi-finals of American Idol! Now, as Suffolk County Delegate for the National Association of Social Workers, Furey has earned praise from the Born This Way Foundation and will soon be featured on the Emmy award-winning show Nick News with Linda Ellerbee. ″We live in a world where both arts-based programs and mental health services are inaccessible and unaffordable to the people who deserve them-particularly marginalized young people,″ she says of what motivates her. ″It also makes me angry most community arts centers are not truly ´community centers,´ but more so arts centers for the communities that can afford to access them.″ When she´s not on tour with her activism workshop for transgender youth, TransACTion!, Furey works with local theater groups and performs at Pride parades with her band The Free Candy Band. ″I wanted to prove to young people everywhere that they could take the things they love to do, turn them into skills, and incorporate what they love into what they do,″ she says. ″I am living proof it can happen!″ -QW
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