AIDS Walk’s 25th Anniversary: 3 Million Dollars Raised to Support HIV/AIDS Services

On July 17 more than 25,000 people gathered in Golden Gate Park for the 25th AIDS Walk San Francisco. More than 3 million dollars was raised for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF) and HIV/AIDS programs and services throughout the Bay Area.

The SFAF is well known for its excellent Black Brothers Esteem, the Magnet clinic that is the medical and cultural center of the Castro, and El Grupo that serves Latinos. It is the 30th year of the HIV/AIDS scourge and the SFAF has battled it since it was founded in a two-man office space on Castro Street by Cleve Jones.

There was a steady roar of voices in the audience and around a couple acres of booths and check-in stands at one end of the huge space and music from the stage coming from the other direction. More than a thousand volunteers registered and coordinated the walkers, recycled throwaways, and handed out bananas, yogurt, health bars, and drinks.

The event began with a bang when Culture Shock dancers joined by former San Francisco City Supervisor Bevan Dufty led the crowd in a warm-up and motivational exercise. SFAF CEO Neil Giuliano inspired with his comments: “The funds raised by AIDS Walk San Francisco play a vital role in our efforts to radically reduce new HIV infections in San Francisco, ensure everybody knows their status, and make sure all people living with HIV/AIDS get the care they need. And AIDS Walk San Francisco is about a community of people coming together not only to create something special, but also to make a substantial impact in the fight against HIV/AIDS across the Bay Area.”

More than 74 million dollars has been raised by AIDS Walk San Francisco in the last 25 years. 48 organizations receive funds from the event. It is an optimistic and positive experience balanced by the knowledge that almost a thousand people sero-convert every year in San Francisco. The SFAF is working to half the infection rate by 2015, assure HIV+ individuals receive proper care, and just about everyone know their HIV status.

Emcees and celebrities included ABC 7’s Dan Ashley, Michael Urie ("Ugly Betty"), Alan Cumming ("The Good Wife"), and Cloris Leachman ("Raising Hope"). San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee spoke and gave a proclamation to Giuliano, praising the vast scale of the fundraiser. Notables included State Senator Mark Leno, Board of Supervisors President David Chiu, Supervisors Scott Wiener and Ross Mirkarimi, Treasurer Jose Cisneros, and Police Chief Greg Suhr.

Actress Leachman is a polarizing figure in many groups in San Francisco. Her inexcusable behavior at Donna Sachet and Gary Virginia’s Pride Brunch a few years back undoubtedly limited her public appearances, but there were a few people who delighted in her AIDS Walk mooning, leaping onto the lap of  Foundation Board Chair Tom Perrault to swig water, and grabbing the sign-language interpreter on stage.

Mary Birdsong from Armistead Maupin’s “Tales of the City: A New Musical” performed a sublime “Bridge Over Troubled Water” with four smiling backup singers. Judy Kale, also from Maupin’s show, sang an uplifting “You’ll Never Walk Alone” as the 25,000 began their several-mile trek.

Concerned volunteers mentioned that the SFAF had taken over the former California AIDS Ride to establish AIDS/LifeCyle to deny a producer a large amount of the funds raised, and asked why they have not taken the AIDS Walk San Francisco production away from Craig Miller’s MZA company. A boost to the funds available for fighting AIDS would result, and AIDS/LifeStroll was a popular proposed name for a re-named event.

Magnet Anniversary: Eight Years of Medicine and Culture in the Castro

Most of the Magnet staff made an appearance at the eighth-year anniversary party on July 9 at their beautifully designed space. On Magnet's inauguration day, Mayor Willie Brown exclaimed that it “looks like the W Hotel!” The design is a combination of blue and a shade of green not favored by many outside of art schools, with clear and colored plastic panels. The ceiling panels appear like they will fly out onto the street momentarily.

Steve Gibson, Magnet’s director, spoke about the clinic before it opened, and as he gathered support its importance became known when community activists realized that the San Francisco LGBT Community Center would not be hosting men and women’s health clinics. The Los Angeles and New York City centers provide HIV/AIDS, breast cancer, and other health services for people who would rather be at an LGBT center to receive those services. Those centers receive millions of dollars for those clinics, and millions more for youth services.

Initially conceived as the health place for 1,500 clients, now Magnet sees more than 9,500 clients yearly. There are special flu shot opportunities, and considering the city’s charges for Hepatitis A and B shots, Magnet is the preferred location for those all-important injections. STD and HIV/AIDS testing and treatment is the clinic’s main function, and its most noticed difference from other clinics is the friendly staff and volunteers. Many of the clients are agitated and distraught about a sudden change in their health, and the Magnet greeters and treaters are able to provide an educational and calming experience. An array of young men and more seasoned gay and bisexual men are sprawled daily on modern seating, and the tension level rises and subsides with the glances and the music.

There is a monthly art or photography display, and on the evening of each month’s first Friday there is an opening party that draws a varied audience of sometimes intense locals and also friends of the presenter.

Cupcakes from Luna Bakery, a mother-and-son business, were served instead of the traditional anniversary cake, and Steve Gibson’s eloquent comments about the future for the health center drew the attention of San Francisco Human Rights Commissioner Mark Kelleher and psychiatrist and sex therapist David Ortmann and three dozen other guests.

The Elizabeth Taylor Party at the Lookout: A Spectacle Benefit to Honor a Great Star

There was a spectacle to honor actress Elizabeth Taylor at the Lookout bar on May 27 that rivaled their other raucous events. The Lookout is not a part of the Castro Triangle of bars that rarely allow fundraisers, and their tempting bartenders sometimes leap from behind the bar to become pageant contestants.

The party was a benefit for AIDS/LifeCycle and Project Inform, and both are worthy charities that need support. AIDS/LifeCycle is an event sponsored by the San Francisco AIDS Foundation, and their Executive Director Neil Giuliano conferred with co-host Donna Sachet, while the other co-host Sister Pat N Leather MC’ed. The event was sponsored by Stoli Vodka and the Lookout and a large crowd yelled enthusiastically for the performers. Sachet wowed the audience with a dance in a shimmering golden gown and a Pharaoh’s flail and shepard’s crook, that echoed dancing scenes in Taylor’s monumental film "Cleopatra."

Hunky bare-chested Stoli Men Brandon, Devin, Chad, Evan, and Bunny were persuasive at selling Jello-O shots and raffle tickets. DJ John LePage put out cools sounds and the drink specials were popular. Guests gathered around champion fundraiser Deana Dawn in awe, because of her convincing illusion of Taylor when she was at the height of her beauty. Stunning Dawn wore a faux diamond-studded white gown, with glittering bracelets on her long white gloves, with more sparkles around her neck and dangling from her ears. Café Flore manager Gary Virginia hovered nearby to protect Dawn from possibly infatuated straight men, and gay men approached reverentially to compliment her for her total effect, from her silver heels to her Hollywood fluff hairdo. Former Empress Cockatelia came out of her usual exquisite drag, as if in a tribute to Dawn, and he also commented on the fine impersonation.

Lots of much needed funds were raised for the two beneficiaries and it was an all around good time for everyone.

The Project Inform Spring Brunch at the Federal Building: A Dramatic Observation of AIDS at 30 Years

Project Inform is the non-profit agency that provides information for people with HIV/AIDS and Hepatitis C to keep them alive through awareness of drug treatments, monitor funding for health needs, and alleviate suffering. Their commemoration of the 30th year of AIDS was observed at the San Francisco Federal Building Sky Garden on May 22nd, Harvey Milk’s Birthday. The Sky Garden is a huge 3 floor maw of an opening in the structure that is keyed into the building’s green technology that uses natural light and solar power to use less fossil fuel than buildings of comparable size. The agency prefers to choose unusual and outstanding venues for their events, and the second annual Spring Brunch was at a dramatic locale with spectacular North and South views.

Project Inform’s Executive Director Dan Van Gorder and Deputy Executive Director for Development Henry Lucero greeted early guests in the immense lobby where the agency’s name and radiating spoons and forks party symbol was backlit on a wall panel. Development Manager Taylor Juel, who made a provocative fashion statement at the recent Suzan Revah-sponsored Nasty Party at the Powerhouse to benefit Project Inform, welcomed party-goers at the venue foyer.

The bright Sunday morning light combined with many of the guests’ memories of over-indulgence on Saturday night drew them to order stiff Bloody Mary cocktails. Global Gourmet Catering provided delicious made-to-order South of the Border cuisine that had diners coming back for seconds.

Executive Director Van Gorder spoke about the expansion of the agency’s mission from HIV/AIDS to include Hepatitis C and that the goal is not only to devise treatment for the two infections, but also find cures. This tied in with the people who were being honored at the event.

There was a surprise change in the program when Van Gorder introduced special guest Cleve Jones, who founded the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and co-founded the Names Project.

Jones had met with Van Gorder at Supervisor Harry Britt’s office in 1981 to tell him about a new disease that had been observed infecting gay men in Los Angeles, and that an alarm needed to be sounded. This was the beginning of the AIDS epidemic that has ended so many lives and dominated so many others for three decades. Shortly afterwards it was observed in San Francisco, and a Black Dawn bacchanal benefit was staged for GRID (what AIDS was called then) to help raise funds for men who had become ill with something that doctors knew little about.

Jones stated that Project Inform had kept him alive, and he thanked the agency’s founder Martin Delaney, John James and others, and said that his position at Leo McCarthy’s Sacramento office in 1981 helped him to access Centers for Disease Control documents to try to understand what was happening. Jones passionately described the huge number of deaths and the despair that it caused when the epidemic appeared to be a pandemic in the mid 1980s, and how men and women in the LGBT community and its allies rose to the occasion to help the suffering and try to treat the manifestations of the HIV/AIDS. People were falling to the ground with convulsions from brain tumors, dying days after a diagnosis of lung congestion in terrible pain, and making a last visit to a favorite café in a wheelchair while other coffee drinkers quietly noticed the Kaposi Sarcoma lesions on their faces and hands. He also said that after all of the horrors that the community has endured, no one should dare to deny equal rights of same-sex marriage and military service to LGBT citizens.

The honorees chosen by Project Inform were the San Francisco Hepatitis C Task Force and its members Alex Randolph, Dominique Leslie, and Emalie Huriaux.

Alex Randolph founded the Hepatitis C Task Force while he was Mayor Gavin Newsom's Special Assistant of LGBT Affairs. He is now the Deputy Director of Community Affairs in the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department. Randolph brought his devoted lover Trevor Nguyen who is active with the Berlin and Beyond Film Festival and the Gay Asian Pacific Alliance.

Dominique Leslie is the Task Force’s co-chair and a secretary at their meetings. She has worked on a program for new inventive awareness and treatments for Hepatitis C.

Emalie Huriaux has worked for a decade as a public health educator and is an expert on reproductive and sexual health, HIV, drugs, and homeless needs. She is involved with street outreach to homeless women and she set up a needle exchange for women.

There was detailed information throughout the event for guests, and many are generous donors. The only factor that seemed to be missing was a mention of what is a leading cause of HIV and Hepatitis C infection, which is the continuing scourge of crystal meth addiction.

Project Inform’s Director of Public Policy Ryan Clary is greatly admired for his work. He spoke about the growing need to add Hepatitis C to HIV/AIDS as a target for better treatments and eventual cures. Many clients have both HIV and Hepatitis C and the combined treatments are a devastating anguish for many of them. There is to be a narrowing of focus with medical and research experts toward cures, though the results so far have been discouraging.

The non-profit’s Director of Health Care Policy Anne Donnelly recently received a well-deserved honor at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation Dinner and it was made clear that she is effective while drawing the best from her co-workers. 

Prominent guests included donor Bob Dockendorff, former San Francisco Supervisor Bevan Dufty with his mayoral campaign communications director Roby Chavez, Hothouse Entertainment’s Sister Roma and her smiling entourage, and the Drug Policy Alliance’s Laura Thomas who was a vision in a dress, jewelry, and buccaneer boots out of a Johnny Depp film in shades of bronze.

The next event to benefit Project Inform is A White Diamond Tribute to Elizabeth Taylor at the Castro Theatre on May 27. Taylor is being honored for her strong advocacy for AIDS awareness, funding, and compassion.

For more information: www.projectinform.org

Black Brothers Esteem Kwanzaa Celebration: Awards and Camaraderie at the LGBT Center

Tony Bradford, Vincent Fuqua, Micah Lubensky, Norman Tanner, Neil Giuliano, and Bob Rybicki

The warmth of the holiday season extended to include the Kwanzaa celebration at the San Francisco LGBT Community Center on Dec. 18. It was sponsored by Black Brothers Esteem (BBE), a strong and vital part of the San Francisco AIDS Foundation.

The presence of the foundation’s new executive director Neil Giuliano and its VP of programs and policy Bob Rybicki at the event reinforced BBE’s importance to the community, and more than 100 celebrants showed up. The tasty chicken dinner and chocolate cake dessert were catered by popular Boston Market, and greetings were exchanged and inventive drag and Afro-centric attire were checked out and complimented.

There was a distinctive Kwanzaa altar on the stage and the community service implied in the holiday’s principles mirror BBE’s instilling of confidence and knowledge in its members so that they can be capable of far more than they imagined. BBE has classes in safer sex and general guidelines for physical and mental health. Graduation diplomas were handed out to continued applause at the dinner.

Inspirational BBE program director Tony Bradford, BBE community development manager Micah Lubensky, and co-founder Norman Tanner bestowed the awards throughout the evening with praise for individual members and their achievements.

Tony Bradford, Vincent Fuqua, and Neil Giuliano

Hardworking and charismatic Vincent Fuqua, a health educator at the San Francisco Department of Public Health's HIV Prevention Section, was honored for coordinating his job with BBE’s outreach to African American men. The San Francisco LGBT Community Center was honored for welcoming BBE to its Rainbow Room for the last couple years to enjoy Kwanzaa.

Black Brothers Esteem and the San Francisco AIDS Foundation are joined together to alleviate the appallingly high HIV/AIDS sero-conversion rate among African American men in San Francisco. The Kwanzaa party was a fine way to celebrate what has been achieved and to set goals for the future.