The Anthony Bobrow Trust just made 250,000 in emergency donations to LGBTQ community organizations.

In response to the mounting crisis surrounding the COVID-19 epidemic, officials with the Anthony Bobrow Trust, owner of the Hidden Door bar, today announced the trust has donated a $250,000 to four Dallas groups that “will have major roles in assisting the GLBTQ community [to] deal with the sudden on-set of the coronavirus emergency.

Those four organizations are AIDS Services of Dallas, AIN, Hope Charities and Legacy Counseling, each of whom received $62,500 in unrestricted funds.

Harvey Meissner, Hidden Door president and co-trustee for the Bobrow Trust, said, “When budgets were prepared last year, the crisis that’s rushing toward us couldn’t have been anticipated. Our community will once again need to quickly join-hands to survive.”

Meissner added that there wasn’t time to arrange the usual presentation and pictures, and checks have already been rushed to the recipient organizations.

“The need is immediate, as in this hour!,” Meissner said. “We’re all stunned by how fast this is moving and the realization that our lives are being seriously disrupted and may never be the same.

“These groups have experience being on the front-line and will have to expand rapidly,” he continued. “There’s not enough time to put together a fund-raising campaign; we put the $250,000 in the mail before we took time to let them know it was coming.”

The Anthony Bobrow Trust, created by longtime leader in the Dallas GLBTQ Tony Bobrow, received Bobrow’s entire estate on his death in February 2018.  Meissner noted that this latest round of donations “brings our donations in the first two years to almost $900,000. We anticipate making additional donations later this year.”