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Happy 25th, CAMP Rehoboth
Community center founded by gay couple that met at White House
CAMP Rehoboth serves the local LGBT community in and around the popular beach resort. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
Silver Gala
Friday, Oct. 9, 7-11 p.m.
Nassau Valley Vineyards
Tickets start at $100
Silver Block Party
Sunday, Oct. 11, 12-4 p.m.
Baltimore Avenue, 2nd block
Suggested donation $10
REHOBOTH BEACH, Del. — As it celebrates its 25th anniversary this weekend, CAMP Rehoboth, the LGBT community center and community services group here, is continuing its role as a well-known and highly regarded operation in Delaware and in the Mid-Atlantic region.
Before Steve Elkins and Murray Archibald, who have been a couple for 37 years, moved to Rehoboth Beach in October 1990 and founded CAMP Rehoboth less than one year later they had been vacationing there since the summer of 1981.
Like the large number of other LGBT people who began to flock to the Delaware beach resort town in the 1970s the two noticed that at least some longtime, year-round residents had become uncomfortable as Rehoboth became increasingly known as a gay destination.
According to Archibald, he and Elkins along with some of their friends sensed the need for an LGBT support and advocacy group in the town around 1989 or 1990. That’s when the Rehoboth Beach Homeowners Association produced and circulated a bumper sticker that said, “Keep Rehoboth A Family Town.”
Everyone knew that message was aimed at the town’s LGBT visitors and growing number of LGBT residents, implying if not saying so openly, that they were not welcome, Archibald and Elkins told the Washington Blade.
“And I always said we wanted it to be a family town as well but families come in all sizes, shapes and orientations,” Elkins said.
Following a series of meetings in late 1990, Elkins and Archibald in 1991 launched CAMP Rehoboth, the town’s first LGBT advocacy and civic organization whose name was an acronym for ‘Create a More Positive’ Rehoboth.
“We thought everybody was focusing on the negative and we said, ‘Let’s create a more positive Rehoboth,’” said Elkins in reflecting on the group’s and the town’s evolution in gay-straight relations since that time.
Archibald said in addition to concerns over the hostile message from the bumper sticker, the atmosphere for gay men in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s was still being shaped by the AIDS epidemic, and he and Elkins thought an LGBT organization would provide support services on that front.
“We were just coming out of that period where so many people were dying and were still dying,” said Archibald. “We were fighting some resistance in town against so many gay people coming to town,” he said. “And you knew we needed something.”
In its first two years, the then all-volunteer group operated in a small rented space on Baltimore Avenue in downtown Rehoboth located two blocks from the boardwalk and beach. The fledgling group had a budget of about $40,000 from money that it managed to raise among early supporters.
It currently has a budget of just under $1 million, with anticipated revenue of $1.1 million for 2015. It has a staff of five full-time paid employees, including Elkins, who serves as executive director. The group’s website proudly says there are three full-time, unpaid volunteer staff members, including Archibald, who play a key role in its operations.
Since 1993, Archibald has served as president of the CAMP Rehoboth Board of Directors. He also serves as producer of the group’s annual Sundance fundraising benefit and as creative director for the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center and for Letters from CAMP Rehoboth.
“Letters,” as many call it, serves as the group’s newsletter-magazine that comes out twice monthly during the summer season and once a month during the off season. The publication is filled with ads from dozens of local businesses, turning it into an important source of revenue supporting CAMP Rehoboth’s multitude of programs and activities.
The ad revenue from Letters; a separate stream of revenue from more than 800 paid members/supporters, which generates about $240,000 annually; and money raised by fundraising events such as Sundance helped the group purchase a complex of several small and larger buildings at the site where it first rented space in 1990.
The successful revenue generating efforts also helped to fund construction of the CAMP Rehoboth Community Center, which now occupies the largest building on the site and the attractively designed courtyard that lies between two larger buildings. The building across the courtyard from the main CAMP Rehoboth building and community center is occupied by a home furnishing and interior design gallery and shop, which rents the space from CAMP Rehoboth, generating further revenue.
Similarly, a small financial services firm and the lesbian-owned Lori’s Café, which occupy small annex buildings located in the rear of the courtyard, also rent their space from CAMP Rehoboth.
Adding yet another stream of revenue is the community center’s “big” room, which can serve as a catering hall or auditorium with a seating capacity of about 90, and several smaller meeting rooms, all of which are available for rent. Archibald said the “big” room is regularly rented to same-sex couples for their wedding receptions.
Among CAMP Rehoboth’s largest programs is CAMPsafe, which for close to 20 years has provided HIV prevention related services, including HIV testing and counseling. Archibald said that although it has catered mostly to gay and bisexual men in the Rehoboth area and eastern Sussex County everyone is welcome to come in for its services.
In recent years the program has expanded under a $120,000 contract from the state health department to include testing for other sexually transmitted infections (STIs).
“We do it for gonorrhea, chlamydia and we have just been selected for doing the first rapid test for syphilis in the state of Delaware,” Elkins said. “That will start in January.”
The CAMPsafe program along with a general mental health counseling program is directed by Salvatore Seeley, a licensed clinical social worker with a Ph.D. in sexual health counseling, Elkins said. Under Seeley’s direction, the counseling program usually involves up to six counseling sessions for any individual client after which Seeley refers them to a clinical therapist if needed.
Seeley’s reputation as a trusted counselor in a wide range of areas, including sexual health and couple counseling, has spread throughout the Sussex County area and even straight couples sometimes drop in, said Elkins.
“Occasionally it’s a straight couple – a husband or wife – where one spouse comes out and he counsels them on that,” Elkins said. “It runs the full gamut.”
Another program is the CAMP Rehoboth Chorus, which has close to 90 members and performs at venues in Rehoboth and surrounding areas, including nursing homes and community events.
Elkins serves as head of a longstanding CAMP Rehoboth program that provides LGBT-related sensitivity training for Rehoboth police officers and state park police officers assigned to the Rehoboth area. Among other things, Elkins said the trainings have resulted in improved relations with police.
Some of the other programs, all of which are listed on the site camprehoboth.com, include a women’s golf league; gallery and performance space for artists; advocacy for and education of local residents, visitors and businesses on LGBT issues; grief counseling; public WiFi access; an annual women’s conference and women’s weekend; and promotion of non-profit local LGBT and general community events.
Archibald noted that as CAMP Rehoboth’s visibility increased over the past 25 years, some in the LGBT community called for it to become more activist and aggressive in its advocacy work similar to the model of the 1980s-era AIDS direct action group ACT UP. He said he and Elkins and the original corps of supporters chose not go in that direction, instead choosing a more conciliatory path.
To this day, the group’s mission statement published in each issue of Letters says, among other things, “We seek to promote cooperation and understanding among all people, as we work to build safe, inclusive communities with room for all.”
Elkins said he believes that approach has succeeded, helping to make Rehoboth Beach a welcoming place for LGBT people that continues to attract LGBT tourists and new residents to the town.
“The thing I’ve always said is once we actually started talking to one another we all realized that we had the same desire – and that’s to have a safe and inclusive community,” Elkins said. “And once we started talking about what we had in common we find we have a lot more in common than we have difference.”
Elkins’ and Archibald’s journey that eventually led them to the founding of CAMP Rehoboth began in Washington, D.C., when the two met on Sept. 18, 1978, and soon fell in love, as Elkins tells it.
Elkins had been working as a White House administrator during the Carter administration and Archibald, an artist and painter, was helping a friend in Washington deliver a painting to Elkins’ office in the Old Executive Office Building, which is part of the White House grounds.
“She called and Steve cleared us all in,” Archibald recalls. “And she said we have to go get another one and he said well Murray’s going to stay here and I’m going to give him a tour of the White House. It was all part of the compound, and he walked me right into the Oval Office that day,” said Archibald.
“And that was it. From that time on it was the two of us,” he said.
When Carter left the White House after losing his re-election bid in 1980 to Ronald Reagan, Elkins, whose job was a political appointment, took a new job as sales manager at a computer company in New York City, where he and Archibald moved. After losing that job in the 1990s when his company went bankrupt, Elkins and Archibald decided to move permanently to Rehoboth Beach, where Elkins became general manager for the Strand nightclub.
In 1993, two years after he and Archibald founded CAMP Rehoboth and served on its board as volunteers, the board asked Elkins to become the group’s first paid executive director, and he accepted. That set in motion a 25-year journey for him and Archibald that has placed them largely at the center of CAMP Rehoboth’s whirlwind of activities today.
Kristen Minor, now 33, was 13 when she first began grappling with the realization that she might be a lesbian and ventured into CAMP Rehoboth 20 years ago and was greeted by Archibald, she writes in a column in the current issue of Letters. She tells of how she first met Archibald and Elkins at the church she and her family attended in Rehoboth and how CAMP Rehoboth became a refuge for her at a time when she “navigated the terrors of middle and high school” and was able to meet a “handful” of other LGBT teenagers.
“The influence of a community organization is sometime hard to measure,” she wrote. “I don’t know how to measure that CAMP saved my life and the lives of many of my friends; it was our real life ‘It Gets Better’ campaign far before such a thing ever existed.”
Steve Elkins, left, and Murray Archibald of Camp Rehoboth are gearing up for a busy October celebrating the community center’s 25 years. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
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Award-winning D.C. chef reaching new culinary heights
Anthony Jones of Marcus DC competing on ‘Top Chef’
In Anthony Jones’s kitchen, all sorts of flags fly, including his own. Executive chef at award-winning restaurant Marcus DC, Jones has reached culinary heights (James Beard Award semifinalist for Emerging Chef, anyone?), yet he’s just getting started.
Briefly stepping away from his award-winning station, Jones took a moment under a different set of lights. Recently, he temporarily gave up his post at the restaurant for a starring small-screen slot on the latest season of “Top Chef,” which debuted in March. (The show airs weekly on Bravo and Peacock).
Before his strategic slice-and-dice competition, however, Jones, who identifies as gay, draws from his deep DMV roots. In the years before “Top Chef” and the top chef spot at Marcus, he was born and raised in Sunderland, Md., in southern Maryland, near the Chesapeake.
Early memories were steeped in afternoons on boats with his dad bonding over fishing, and wandering the garden of his great-grandparents spread with fresh vegetables and a few hogs. “It was Southern, old-school ethics and upbringing,” he said. “Family and food went hand in hand.” Weekends meant grabbing bushels of crabs, dad and grandma would cook and crack them. Family members would host fish fries for extra cash. In this seafood-heavy youth, Jones managed time to sneak in episodes of the “OG” Japanese “Iron Chef” show, which helped inspire him to pursue a career in the kitchen.
Jones moved to D.C. after graduating from college, ending up at lauded Restaurant Eve, and met famed chef Marcus Samuelson, who brought him to Miami to be part of the opening team for Red Rooster Overtown. After three years, Jones moved back to D.C., where he ran Dirty Habit, reinventing and reimagining the menu, integrating West African flavors and ingredients.
Samuelson, however, wouldn’t let a talent like Jones stay away for too long. Pulling Jones back into his orbit, Samuelson elevated Jones to help him open his namesake restaurant Marcus DC, which has been named a top-five restaurant by the Washington Post. Since then, Jones has been nominated as a semifinalist for the RAMMYs Rising Culinary Star in 2026 and won the Eater DC’s Rising Chef award in 2025.
Samuelson’s Marcus is a tour de force interpreting the Black Diaspora on the plate, from the American South to West Africa, along with his signature “Swedopian” touches. Yet it’s Jones who has deeply informed the plate, elevating his own story to date. Marcus DC is primarily a seafood restaurant, which serves Jones well.
“Where I’m from is seafood heavy, and as I’ve progressed in my career, I’ve moved away from meat.” Veggies and fish are hero dishes. His own dish, Mel’s Crab Rice, was not only lauded by the Washington Post, but is framed by his youth carrying home the crustaceans from Mel’s crab truck. It’s a bowl of Carolina rice, layered with pickled okra, uni béarnaise, and crab. Jones also points to a dish on the opening menu, rockfish and brassica, paying respect to a landmark D.C. institution, Ben’s Chili Bowl. Jones reverse engineered a favorite bowl of chili that’s seafood instead of meat forward, leveraging octopus and rockfish along with different riffs of cauliflower: showing his intellectual, creative, and cultural sides.
While “Top Chef” is showing Jones’s spotlight side, he also lets his identity show at work. “In the kitchen, I make sure we’re inclusive. We don’t tolerate discrimination. Everyone that’s here should feel confident to express themselves. There are so many different flags in the kitchen.”
Jones says that he didn’t fully express his gay identity until fairly recently. He felt reluctant coming out to certain family members, “you’re scared to tell them about being different,” he says, and while that anxiety ate at him, “I’m lucky and fortunate to have unconditional love and that weight off my shoulders.”
Today, “I’m me all the time, Monday to Sunday. I’m honest with people, and my staff is honest with me.”
“Being a chef is hard,” he says, “and being a chef of color is even more difficult.”
Yet his LGBTQ identity is a juggling act, he says. “I need to keep that balance, because once someone finds out something about you, their opinion can change, whether you want it or not.”
Being on a whole season of TV cooking competition, however, might mean millions more might have an opinion of him (Jones has appeared on TV already, on an episode of “Chopped”). To prepare, he says, “I’ve just kept a level head. It’s just an honor to be on top chef with amazing people happy to be there.”
Plus, this season is set in the Carolinas, and Jones attended Johnson & Wales University in Charlotte, N.C. “It’s a full story of my life, now a monumental moment for me.”
Jones also recently was nominated for a James Beard Foundation Award. “JBF has been a north star, a dream for so long. I always had this goal on my wall.”
Being at the top spot at Marcus DC, making waves through his accolades, and cooking on Bravo means that Jones is highly visible. “I think that if someone has a similar background to me, and can see our story, trajectory, and success, they can have more ability to be themselves. This is my goal.”
Back at Marcus, Jones has plenty up his chef’s white’s sleeves. A new spring menu is in the works. He’ll be launching a new tasting menu “dining experience,” he says, and has plans to work on more events and collaborations with chefs and friends to bring in new talent and share the culinary wealth.
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Introducing the Torchbearers Awards honoring queer, trans women and nonbinary people
Meet the Legends and Illuminators lighting new paths
The Torchbearers Awards are more than recognition—they are a continuation of legacy. They honor the quiet architects of progress in our community: those who organize, advocate, build, and protect, often without fanfare but always with purpose. Rooted in a belief in intentional recognition, this honor names those who carry our movements forward—those who make room for others, who remind us that change is both generational and generative. In a time marked by uncertainty and challenge, these leaders push forward with courage, clarity, and an unwavering commitment to expanding opportunity and equity.
This year’s honorees reflect the full breadth of our community, spanning generations, backgrounds, identities, and industries. From Legends, with decades of leadership and having created pathways for others, to Illuminators, who are lighting new paths with creativity and innovation, each Torchbearer represents the power of intergenerational leadership and the strength found in our diversity. They are organizers, advocates, artists, policy leaders, healers, and changemakers whose lived experiences shape a shared vision for equity and liberation.
This award is our love letter to queer and trans women and nonbinary people who carry the flame when it would be easier to let it dim. To those who consistently show up, who use their voice and visibility and stand firm, often without recognition, so that others may live more freely and fully. The Torchbearers Awards celebrates not just what has been done, but the enduring spirit, responsibility, and collective care that ensure the work continues, and that the flame is always passed forward.
Co-Creators of the Torchbearers Awards: Shannon Alston, June Crenshaw, Heidi Ellis
Torchbearers Awards Advisory Board: Aditi Hardikar, Lesley Bryant, Jasmine Wilson-Bryant, Stephen Rutgers
ILLUMINATOR AWARDEES
- Representative Sharice Davids (she/her), (D, KS-03)
— U.S. House of Representatives - Greisa Martinez Rosas (she/her/ella)
— Executive Director, United We Dream - Paola Ramos (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Meagan A. Fitzgerald (she/her)
— Journalist & Correspondent - Jessica L. Lewis (she/her)
— Founder / Producer, Play Play DC - Savannah Wade (she/her)
— Founder, OAR Agency - Suhad Babaa (she/her)
— Filmmaker/ Former Executive Director of Just Vision - Ashlee Davis (she/her)
— Global Head of Inclusive Outcomes, Ancestry - Jazmine Hughes (she/her)
— Journalist and Former Editor at New York Times Magazine - Queen Adesuyi (they/she)
— Policy Advisor & Organizer, ReFrame Health & Justice - Michele Rayner, Esq. (she/her)
— Civil Rights Attorney, State Representative (Florida House of Representatives) - Gaby Vincent (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Jenny Nguyen (she/her)
— Founder & Owner, The Sports Bra - Denice Frohman (she/her)
— Independent Artist, Poet / Performer - Vida Rangel (she/her)
— Founder, Our Trans Capital - Roxanne Anderson (they/them)
— Executive Director, Our Space - Ann Marie Gothard (she/her)
— Co-Founder & President, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Diana Rodriquez (she/her)
— Co-Founder & CEO, Pride Live (Stonewall National Monument Visitor Center) - Wendi Cooper (she/her)
— Founder / Executive Director, Transcending Women - Toya Matthews (she/her)
— City of San Antonio, Texas - Mayor Gina Ortiz Jones (she/her)
— Sports/Cultural Commentator and Community Leader - Charity Blackwell (she/her)
— Poet, LGBTQ Advocate & Community Leader - Wilhelmina Indermaur (she/her)
— Director of Communications, Tyler Clementi Foundation - Em Chadwick (she/her)
— CMO, For Them & Autostraddle - Kylo Freeman (they/he)
— CEO, For Them & Autostraddle
LEGEND AWARDEES
- Sheila Alexander-Reid (she/her)
— Executive Director, PHL Diversity, Philadelphia Convention & Visitors Bureau - Cassandra Cantave Burton (she/her)
— Interim Director of Thought Leadership & Senior Research Advisor, AARP - leigh h. mosley (she/her)
— Photographer / Educator, PhotoFlo Photography - Jenn M. Jackson, PhD (they/them)
— Assistant Professor of Political Science; Author & Columnist, Syracuse University - Jordyn White (she/her)
— COO, Washington Prodigy / VP of Leadership Development & Research, HRC Foundation - AJ Hikes (they/them)
— Deputy Executive Director, ACLU - RaeShanda Lias (she/her)
— Digital Creator, RL Lockhart - Donna Payne-Hardy (she/her)
— Educator, EEO Specialist, Founder of NBJC, Former Leader at the Human Rights Campaign - Courtney R. Snowden (she/her)
— Principal, Blueprint Strategy Group - Gaye Adegbalola (she/her)
— Musician & Activist, Musician / Inductee of the Blues Hall of Fame - Cheryl A. Head (she/her)
— Independent Author, Novelist (Crime Fiction) - Letitia Gomez (she/her)
— The American LGBTQ+ Museum, Board Chair - Lynne Brown (she/her)
— Publisher, Washington Blade - Shay Franco-Clausen (She/Her/Ella/Queen)
— Political Strategist and Organizer - Melissa L. Bradley (she/her)
— Founder & Managing Partner, New Majority Ventures - Meghann Burke (she/her)
— Executive Director, NWSL Players Association - Victoria Kirby York, MPA (she/they)
— Director of Public Policy & Programs, National Black Justice Collective - Joli Angel Robinson (she/her)
— CEO, Center on Halsted - Jeannine Frisby LaRue (she/her)
— CEO, Moxie Strategies - Alice Wu (she/her)
— Film Director (Saving Face, The Half of It) / Screenwriter - Storme Webber (she/her)
— Interdisciplinary Artist / Educator, University of Washington - Kim Stone
— CEO of the Washington Spirit, Washington Spirit - Mickalene Thomas
— American Visual Artist, Mickalene Thomas Studio - Erika Lorshbough (any/they/she)
— Executive Director, interACT - J. Gia Loving (she/ella)
— Co-Executive Director, GSA Network
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D.C. springs back to life with new, returning events
Cherry blossoms, Rehoboth season kickoff, and more on tap
Longer and warmer days are back meaning: It’s time to get out of the house and enjoy Washington D.C.’s many events. Below are a few to check out this spring.
The National Museum of Women in the Arts will host “Making their Mark: Works from the Shah Garg Collection” until Sunday, July 26. This exhibition illustrates women artists’ vital role in abstraction, considers historical contributions, formal and material breakthroughs and intergenerational relationships among women artists over the last eight decades. For more details, visit. NMWA’s website.
Art in the Attic will host a pop-up on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. at 1012 Madison St., Alexandria, Va. There will be a variety of vendors selling products across different modes of art. For more details, visit Eventbrite.
Play Play will host “Indoor Recess – The art of play” on Sunday, March 15 at 2 p.m. This event will embody classic recess energy, including opportunities to build and experience community and connections through games, movement, art stations, and creative freedom. Tickets are $12.51 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
Spark Social will host “Gay Bar Crawl on U Street” on Friday, March 20 at 7:30 p.m. This will be a fun night out in gay D.C. with other gay people, whether you’re visiting D.C., new to the area, or just looking to expand your social circle. Many crawlers have formed lasting friendships and even romantic relationships after just one night out. Tickets are $35.88 and are available on Eventbrite.
Creative Suitland Arts Center will host “EFFERVESCENT: House of Swann” on Saturday, May 30 at 7 p.m. This will be a gay, good time where we will celebrate love, joy, wellness, and visibility for the LGBTQIA+ community. Tickets start at $17.85 and can be purchased on Eventbrite.
SWAG Works DC will host “Unapologetically Her” on Saturday, March 14 at 2 p.m. at 701 E St., S.E. This event is a powerful celebration of womanhood, resilience, creativity, and self-expression in honor of Women’s History Month. This all-women exhibition highlights the diverse voices, stories, and artistic perspectives of women who create boldly, live authentically, and stand confidently in their truth. This event is free and more details are available on Eventbrite.
9:30 Club will host “Gimme Gimme Disco: A Dance Party Inspired by ABBA” on Saturday, March 14 at 6 p.m. There will also be a “Donna Summer Power Hour – The Queen of Disco” segment during this event. It’ll be one hour of music with no skips. Tickets are available on 9:30 Club’s website.
Harder Better Faster Stronger will host “Heated Rivalry Rave” on Friday, March 20 at 9 p.m. at Howard Theatre. This event is open to all ages. Tickets are available on the theater’s website.
CAMP Rehoboth hosts its 25th annual Women’s+ FEST, April 9-12 in Rehoboth Beach, Del. Entertainers include headliner Mina Hartong, a comedian, storyteller, and founder of Lez Out Loud; and singer Yoli Mayor. There are dances, dinners, pickleball, and much more. Details and tickets at camprehoboth.org.
Also in Rehoboth Beach, the Washington Blade’s 19th annual Summer Kickoff Party is set for Friday, May 15 featuring Ashley Biden, who will accept an award on behalf of her brother Beau. State Rep. Claire Snyder-Hall will also speak. More speakers and the venue to be announced soon.
The annual D.C. Cherry Blossom Festival kicks off March 21 at DAR Constitution Hall and culminates with Petalpalooza on April 4, the day-long, outdoor street party with music and art, stretching across Navy Yard, and ending with fireworks over the Anacostia River.
Surviving spring cleaning
Iconic Eddie Izzard takes on 23 characters in ‘Hamlet’
How Pepper the courthouse dog helps victims of abuse
Women’s FEST returns to Rehoboth Beach next week
Belarusian lawmakers approve bill to crackdown on LGBTQ rights
Supreme Court rules against Colo. law banning conversion therapy for minors
Senegalese president signs bill that further criminalizes homosexuality
Trans activists gather on National Mall for Transgender Day of Visibility
Md. lawmakers reaffirm legislative priorities
The cost of speaking one’s mind
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