LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth |
AIDS Food Programs: Consider Serving Others |
Washington, D.C. author John-Manuel Andriote in a speech on Saturday, Sept. 9, told AIDS nutrition service providers to consider serving people with other diseasesa controversial move for many of the organizations, and one that a number of others are already making. "With declining numbers of people in this country who are incapacitated by AIDS," said Andriote, "and with the capacity to serve more people than those who currently require the services of AIDS nutrition and other AIDS-focused programs, the question arises: Should an organization scale back its operation? Or is there a way to maintain capacity, perhaps even grow and bring in new sources of income and donations, by a slight shift in focus?" Andriote was speaking to 250 representatives of AIDS food assistance programs across the U.S. and Canada at the seventh annual "Food Fight," the national conference of community-based AIDS meal providers sponsored by the AIDS Nutrition Services Alliance. Andriote noted that Washington, D.C.'s AIDS meals program Food & Friends this year launched a special program offering its services to people homebound by cancer, Alzheimer's and other life-threatening illnesses besides AIDS. San Francisco's Project Open Hand, Open Hand-Atlanta, and Seattle's Chicken Soup Brigade are among the organizations exploring similar programs. Food & Friends' executive director Craig Schniderman said the new program has attracted "big straight givers" who had not previously contributed to AIDS organizationsbut were interested in donating toward a program serving those with illnesses afflicting their own friends or family. Kathleen DeBold, director of D.C.'s Mautner Project for Lesbians with Cancer, a participant in Food & Friends' new program, said that individual labels were irrelevantwhether straight or gay, black or white, person with AIDS or person with cancer. "If you are a person with a life-threatening illness," said DeBold, "you have Food & Friendsand that's a fabulous message." In today's shifting political climate and uncertain future support for AIDS-specific programs, Andriote noted that "with a bit of imaginative reconfiguration, not only can you find new sources of funding and public support, but the community at large benefits from the services of nutrition organizations that have perfected the art and science of preparing and delivering nutritious, medically appropriate food to those in the greatest need." John-Manuel Andriote is the author of Victory Deferred: How AIDS Changed Gay Life in America (University of Chicago Press, 1999), winner of this year's Lambda Literary Awards' "Editors' Choice" and hailed by Kirkus Reviews as "The most important AIDS chronicle since Randy Shilts' And the Band Played On." |
LETTERS From CAMP Rehoboth, Vol. 10, No. 13, Sept. 22, 2000. |