True Colors Flying at The Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation & Camp T.L.C.

Clear your calendar on April 19! The Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation is gearing up for a benefit whose centerpiece is a photography exhibition by Tom DeGrezia called “Inverted Silence.” The series of stunning photos, mostly featuring teenagers, seek to express the hope and sadness that comes with living with HIV/AIDS in our modern world. The benefit, which will include an auction of the photographic prints, among other treasures, will raise much-needed funds for the Joey DiPaolo AIDS Foundation (JDAF) and the nonprofit’s primary project, Camp T.L.C. (Teens Living with a Challenge). Celebrating its seventh year, Camp T.L.C. offers a weeklong Catskill Mountain getaway for teenagers living with HIV, many of whom are living in group homes or have lost parents to the disease or both. All gather to celebrate who they are—and, often for the first time, share their experiences with peers—in a safe, supportive, and healthcare-tailored environment, as well as enjoy fun, educational activities such as arts and crafts, sports, hiking, movie night, dances, job-skills assistance, safer sex education, support groups, and wellness opportunities.

Date: April 19; time: 7:30 p.m.; location: 30 W. 16th Street (between 5th and 6th avenue), New York, NY; tickets: $50.

Ad-based and other types of sponsorships are available.
Contact Tom DeGrezia by e-mail at invertedsilence@gmail.com or by phone at (718) 967-5609.

For more information about “Inverted Silence, contact Tom DeGrezia by phone at (917) 596-3506 or Michael Ventarola at (917) 301-8688, or by e-mail at invertedsilence@gmail.com. Check out JDAF on-line at www.jdaf.org.

STRIKE

Artists Yoko Ono and Tony Feher will be honored at STRIKE II, the Third Annual Visual AIDS Vanguard Awards, a bowling event created to honor individuals who exemplify the mission of Visual AIDS through their commitment to HIV/AIDS advocacy, education, prevention, and their support of artists with HIV/AIDS. Date: May 19; time: 8–11 p.m.; location: 300 NEW YORK at the Chelsea Piers Complex (Pier 60, 23rd Street and West Side Highway), New York, New York; tickets: $250 (individual), $500 (patron individual), $2,500 (patron single lanes), $5,000 (patron double lanes); $125 (artist tickets).
For more information, contact Visual AIDS by phone at (212 )627-9855; by e-mail at info@visualAIDS.org; or log on to www.visualAIDS.org.

AIDS Walk Africa

Registration for AIDS Walk Africa is now open! This year’s thirty-five-mile trek will take place in Swaziland, where an estimated thirty-nine percent of the population was living with HIV according to a 2005 figure. The event serves to raise funds for Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation and see firsthand the work of the lifesaving, Foundation-funded programs that prevent mother-to-child transmission of HIV and provide treatment for children and families living with HIV/AIDS. Dates: June 30–July 5; minimum pledge: $15,000.

To join AIDS Walk Africa 2008, or for more information, visit www.pedaids.org/awa2008.

A Time for Heroes

As one of the Elizabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation’s signature events, A Time for Heroes Carnival brings together Los Angeles’s brightest stars, best food, and kids of all ages to raise money to support the Foundation’s ongoing research and prevention programs. Celebrities, families, and Foundation supporters have the chance to enjoy a fun-filled day of carnival activities—from dunk tanks to a storytelling corner—while raising nearly $1 million to help children and families around the world. Date: June 8; time: 12–4 p.m.; location: Wadsworth Theater Grounds, Los Angeles, California; tickets: $1,000 (adult), $250 (child).

Visit www.pedaids.org for more informat

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FEATURED LINK

Community Profile: The Names Project

“People call us and say, You know my uncle, my brother, my niece [has died] and I want to have a panel made but I don’t think I have the time. We say, Well, give us the information about them, send us a picture, tell us something about them and we’ll do the rest,” says Jada Harris, who curates the Quilt among other duties at Atlanta-based nonprofit, The NAMES Project/AIDS Memorial Quilt. While the Quilt still accepts panels, hand-crafted by loved ones in honor of someone who has died from AIDS-related complications (which arrive on the organization’s doorstep on average once a day), the organization has also recently launched the Call My Name Panel-Making Workshops, where quilters transform materials provided to them—personal effects, stories about the individual, or even just his or her name—into a panel to be sewn into larger blocks of the Quilt.

In this way, the Quilt is mindful of dropped stitches—a quarter million of those who have died are not represented. Though names can be added to the roll and are read aloud ongoingly throughout each and every display, the Quilt itself memorializes more than 91,000 names, representing less than twenty percent of the people who have died of HIV/AIDS in the U.S. Additionally, less than 300 of the over 48,000 panels were created for African-Americans.

“[W]hen you’re getting bombarded with the statistics of what the pandemic is doing domestically, particularly in the African-American community, you see that the Quilt is not really representing how the pandemic is moving. And yet [when] we get our display applications and people ask us for individual blocks of panel our biggest request is for African-American [pieces of the] Quilt. We simply do not have enough to fulfill the demand.” The nonprofit is prepared to handle the supply, though, thanks to a recent surge of volunteers—composed primarily of African-American women—eager to help out. Part of the mission of the initiative is to “show what the physical, human toll is taking in this community.

“People want to show what’s happening in their community, [that] the spread of AIDS has gone on….More and more the face of AIDS is looking more brown, more black, more Latino, more female, younger, and I think that there is probably a misconception that it’s not that. To show it really changes people’s perception of what AIDS is in America,” notes Harris adding everyone can find a multitude of identities within what she calls the “most democratic memorial in the world.” Harris also realizes that people grieve in their own time. The call is not meant to rush anyone’s emotional process, only to provide more opportunities for public expression and for the memories of those lost to live on.

Along with the call for panel submissions to come in, the Quilt is also working to get the panels out. “It’s our twentieth anniversary and we want to get every block of Quilt off the shelves,” Harris enthuses. “So we’re encouraging this World AIDS Day to be the biggest Quilt display we can get going across the country—colleges, universities, hospitals, museums, rec centers, churches, synagogues, mosques, wherever there’s an opportunity to display a section of the Quilt.”

For more information, log on to www.aidsquilt.org.

September 2007