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 | | C. Michael Savage | | | Inducted 2005 [Posthumous] | | | | Social work executive and religious
activist, for leading programs that served such groups as the homeless,
the addicted, low-income persons with HIV/AIDS, immigrants, and the
medically needy as well as leading Dignity, the gay and lesbian Roman
Catholic organization.
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| The life work of Mike Savage covered
multiple areas of relevance to Hall of Fame criteria: advocacy, civic
involvement, education, health, labor, medicine,
religion, and social services. | |
| Savage was a graduate of St. Louis University
and began his career of service working on
behalf of lower-income neighborhoods in
St. Louis and of migrant farm workers
throughout the country. | |
| His activities included serving as chief operating officer of Travelers and
Immigrants Aid in Chicago (now Heartland Alliance for Human Needs and
Human Rights), executive director of Fenway Community Health Center in
Boston and of United Neighborhood Organization of Chicago (UNO) on the
Southwest Side, and since 1994 as chief executive officer of Access Community
Health Network, which expanded from nine facilities to become a 41-clinic
organization serving 160,000 medically underserved patients in the Chicago
area, including many underinsured sexual-minority clients and persons with
HIV/AIDS. | |
| Savage was deeply involved in many sectors of the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
and transgender) communities and many of its organizations, including
DignityUSA, the first AIDS Walk, Horizons Community Services, and Equality
Illinois. | |
| He was a leader in fighting for oppressed people’s rights at United Power for
Action and Justice and for persons in recovery in many settings, such as the
National Association of Community Health Centers’ HIV/Substance Abuse
Committee. He was a tireless advocate for providing residential and outpatient
services for LGBT persons with addictions. | |
| At Heartland Alliance, Savage helped to expand services to homeless and lowincome
persons living with HIV/AIDS. He also worked to ensure that LGBT
immigrants had access to immigration services and that LGBT survivors of
domestic violence had access to counseling support. | |
| He was instrumental in persuading Illinois lawmakers to expand the KidCare
child health insurance program to cover parents. He also took part in Stand
Against Cancer, which helped to organize a campaign to enable poor Illinois
women to obtain cervical cancer screening. The program screened more than
6,000 women in its first six months. | |
| Born in 1952 in Fairfield, Illinois, Clarence Michael Savage died on June 24,
2004, in a whitewater rafting accident while in Alaska attending a conference on
behalf of Access. | |
| Mike Savage's award was accepted by his partner, Andy Swan. | |
| This biography is as of the induction date. It has not been updated. |
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