Big Gay Game Show benefit debuts Wednesday

By Mike Fleming | Apr 17, 2012 | 3:30 PM

If there’s any issue that most of gay Atlanta agree on, it’s LGBT youth. Combine that with a fun way to raise money for them, and pretty much everyone can get on board for Lost N Found Youth’s new monthly Big Gay Game Show at Jungle.

The Big Gay Game Show spoofs retro TV game shows such as Match Game, Family Feud,
and Let’s Make a Deal. Contestants will be pulled from the audience, and the games will feature local celebrity panelists and emcees. Food will be available for purchase.

The event at Jungle on the third Wednesday of each month will change it up each time with three 30-minute games. For Wednesday’s debut event, look for the MISTER Center’s Chandler Bearden to host Family Feud: Leathermen vs. Drag Queens. Rory Evans will host Match Game with panelists including Topher Payne as Sarah Palin, Dragnique winner Edie Cheezburger, Cam Murphy, porn star Scott Spears, a Charles Nelson Reilly impersonator and drag king Hatden Cold McCord.

A rousing round of Bullshit is also on tap. Between game shows, it’s Let’s Make a Deal. Bubba D. Licious hosts, and instead of the infamous “Barker’s Beauties,” there’ll be “Bubba’s Boyz” helping move things along. Food for the debut event will be provided by Fifth & Ivory.

“Our goal is to try and involve as many facets of our community as we can and be entertaining, too,” says Sister Ursula Polari, aka Art Davenport, an organizer of the event and a member of the Atlanta Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence, the local group of painted gay male nuns who are always doing good in the gayborhood.

In that vein, the whole Big Gay Game Show shebang benefits Lost N Found Youth, an Atlanta non-profit actively working to take homeless LGBT youth off the street. The organization provides temporary housing, job search assistance and counseling, and many other services for LGBT youths aged 18-25 who are homeless or facing imminent homelessness.

“One of our founders, Rick Westbrook (aka Rapture Divine Cox) has long been concerned about the welfare of our LGBTQ Youth and the lack of services for those who are homeless,” Polari says. “The more I heard about Atlanta’s homelessness situation, I knew I had to become involved. This is just an extension of why I became a Sister to begin with—to help my community however I can, in the best way I can.”

The end-game for the Big Gay Game Show is to provide even more help to Atlanta’s struggling gay youth, Polari says.

“Our current house has a monthly budget of about $2,500—rent, utilities, insurance, food and more—and we have a waiting list of kids who want to get off the street. So another house would be great,” Polari adds.

So as you round up your friends for the Big Gay Game Show, consider Polari’s parting words of wisdom that show the heart behind the fun: “I would encourage everyone in the community to get involved in some project/organization that touches their heart—homeless LGBTQ Youth; our trans-community (who always seem to be forgotten or left out); HIV/AIDS awareness & education; civic action groups to help improve our city. The list of opportunities is endless. Your work will be rewarding on so many different levels.”

Big Gay Game Show benefit debuts Wednesday

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