Alan Reiff has been a volunteer with Heritage of Pride (NYCPride) for over 30 years. In 1995 he joined their Executive Board as the Secretary. He has held the positions of Community Relations Director, Pridefest Director, and Co-Chair from 2001 -2003, and again from 2011 – 2013.

Today, Alan is active on the the following committees: The March, Community Relations, Stonewall 50, and Development. From October of 2013 till September of 2017, Alan was a member of the Executive Board of Queens Pride. He held the positions of Festival Director, Co-Chair, NERP 2015 Programming Director, and Secretary. He is also a member of OUTAstoria, and a founding member of OUTBronx.

Alan has also been very active with InterPride for over 20 years. He was on the first WorldPride committee in 2000 and worked in Rome on that event. He was then elected to be the first WorldPride committee chairperson for InterPride: a position he still holds today. He was Interpride’s Executive Board Secretary for 2 years ending in 2011 and is also a member of their Human Rights Committee. He was the keynote speaker at Budapest Pride 2001 where he brought the first Rainbow Flag to that city. He spoke at Warsaw EuroPride in 2011. He participated in the organization of World Pride London 2012, and carried the InterPride banner at EuroPride 2013 in Marseille, France. He also organized InterPride’s booth at WorldPride Toronto 2015. He currently serves as a Regional Director for the Northeast region of the USA. Past international missions include speaking at CSD Konstanz Pride in Germany in 2013. This was especially moving since his grandparents were forced to leave Europe before WW I, and he returned as an honored guest. Other missions brought him to Vilnus, Lithuania for Baltic Pride 2014 (with Stuart Milk), Riga, Latvia for EuroPride 2015, and the summer of 2016 to Amsterdam, Europride 2016. In April of 2016, he co-led the first ever LGBT Youth Activists workshop in Bucharest, Romania. He was very active in helping to plan World Pride Madrid 2017: representing InterPride’s interests, as well as helping the organizers with logistics.

In “his spare time”, Alan works for the DOE as the ENL Coordinator currently at The Bronx Academy of Multi-Media in the South Bronx. He is multi-lingual which he credits for his ability to be able to function in any situation. He has taught High School in Suzhow, China as a Sandy Feldman UFT Teaching Fellow, as well as creating a language protocol for new U.S. immigrants with the International Rescue Center at their Arizona office. Prior to teaching full time, he worked for EL AL Israel Airlines based in NYC and was an ESL Adjunct Lecturer for LaGuardia Community College. He has participated in and led many workshops over the years on Pride organizing as well as on ENL education. In all his years with the DOE, he has always been proud to be an OUT teacher and has been fortunate to have administrators who have always supported him. He has lived by Harvey Milk’s rule of being authentic and being OUT. This past school year, Alan has been leading a GSA lunch time group at his middle school. He has found this endeavor to be one of the most rewarding things he has ever done. “I’m giving these kids something I never had.” This unique combination of Pride experience, and being an OUT teacher, has made him a role model and advocate for all LGBT teachers and students. He is well deserving of the 2019 Daniel Dromm Educator’s Award.