09/04/2026
Honoring the Life and Legacy of Glen Kahrman
Dear Planning Council Members, Affiliates, and Community Partners,
We are saddened to share the passing of Glen Donald Kahrman, a longtime New Orleans public health advocate, community leader, and one of the people whose courage and service helped shape our community's response to HIV and AIDS.
With the permission of Glen's husband, Noel Twilbeck, we are sharing information about Glen's upcoming Celebration of Life so that members of our community who knew him, worked alongside him, benefited from his work, or simply wish to honor his legacy have an opportunity to do so.
Many in our HIV community know Noel through his decades of leadership with the NO/AIDS Task Force and CrescentCare. Glen, however, built an extraordinary legacy of service of his own. In the earliest years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, when fear was widespread and treatment options were desperately limited, Glen was among those willing to travel to Mexico to obtain medications for people living with HIV before effective treatments were readily accessible in the United States. His efforts helped people at a time when simply taking action required tremendous courage.
That commitment continued throughout his life. Glen served on the Board of Directors of the NO/AIDS Task Force, as well as the board of Belle Reve, which provided housing and support for people living with HIV/AIDS. In 1990, he co-chaired the first NO/AIDS Walk, helping begin an effort that would raise millions of dollars for HIV services in the years that followed.
Glen would later bring that same commitment directly to the everyday needs of people living with HIV as manager of Food For Friends. For 12 years, he worked to ensure that hundreds of individuals who were homebound or needed nutritional support received healthy meals and groceries. Community records from that period show the scale of that work: in 2015 alone, Food For Friends distributed more than 40,000 home-delivered meals and 190,000 pounds of groceries.
His life was not defined only by work. Glen was described by those who loved him as kind, elegant, and someone who loved family, friends, ice cream, and strawberry-rhubarb pie. He served in the United States Marine Corps during the Vietnam era, sang with the Flaming Chalice Choir at First Unitarian Universalist Church, and in 2017 proudly served as a Grand Marshal of the Gay Easter Parade, an event closely connected to fundraising for Food For Friends.
And at the center of Glen's life was Noel. They shared 37 years together and 16 years of marriage. Their lives and service became intertwined with a generation of New Orleanians who responded to HIV not by looking away, but by caring for one another, organizing, feeding people, raising money, demanding better care, and building institutions that continue serving our community today.
For those of us involved in HIV planning and service today, there is something especially important about remembering people like Glen. Much of the system we now work within exists because people before us refused to accept that illness, stigma, poverty, or government inaction should determine who received care and who was forgotten. Their history is part of our history. Their work continues through ours.
Glen's family is planning a vibrant and colorful "Celebration of Glen's Life, Love, and Laughter" on:
Saturday, October 3, 2026
Visitation: 10:00 a.m. to 12:00 noon
Celebration of Life: 12:00 noon
Lake Lawn Metairie Funeral Home & Cemeteries
5100 Pontchartrain Boulevard
New Orleans, LA 70124
The family encourages those attending to bring or share photographs and stories of Glen's life, love, and laughter. Interment will follow at Metairie Cemetery.
Read Glen Kahrman's full obituary and service information
https://www.dignitymemorial.com/obituaries/new-orleans-la/glen-kahrman-13013119
In lieu of flowers, Glen's family asks that those wishing to honor his memory consider supporting Food For Friends through CrescentCare, continuing the work to which Glen gave so much of himself.
Donate to CrescentCare in Glen's honor
https://www.crescentcare.org/donate/
We extend our deepest condolences and love to Noel, Glen's family, friends, colleagues, and the many people whose lives he touched.
May we honor Glen not only by remembering what he did, but by continuing it.
With sympathy and gratitude,
Joseph Santiago
New Orleans Regional AIDS Planning Council (NORAPC)
Ways to Give CrescentCare is a 501c3 non-profit and a Federally Qualified Health Center (FQHC) committed to providing comprehensive healthcare services to all. Your tax deductible donation is a crucial part of our mission. $50 covers the cost of groceries for one Food for Friends client. $200 covers...
