Dear Friends,
We miss seeing you, and hope you are well and safe! Your support is allowing us to continue to support people living with HIV during these challenging times.
Jerry is one of our CarePartners who is so grateful for your support, and I hope you’ll take a minute and read his story. We’re also sharing some good news, some items we’re hoping you might help with, a spotlight on a fabulous funder, an outdoor benefit concert, a volunteer spotlight, and more.
Five minutes, and you’ll be filled in!
Know we are thinking of you and sending our best to you and yours, and we’re grateful for the difference that you and your support are making.
Stay safe and know you’re appreciated!
Scott Blades
Executive Director
Quick Links to This Month’s Articles
- Thank You!
- Living with HIV, Jerry Discovers the Amount of Support in Tucson That You Provide
- The Red Concert: An AIDS Benefit, Outside Under the Stars – Sunday, October 3
- Funder spotlight: Desert Diamond Casinos
- Covid Update, and Thank you for Your Continued Vigilance!
- Volunteer Spotlight: Dave Ingalls, The Person Behind the Website Magic!
- Featured CarePackage Need of the Month: Paper Towels
- Americans Get a “D” on HIV PrEP and an “F” on U=U
- Volunteering: Engaging with Your Community, Safely, Even During a Pandemic
Thank You!
We are so grateful to all who made our 2021 Treasures for TIHAN Benefit – “Rainbows in the Desert” – such a great success! It was 10 fun days of bidding via an online auction, plus a one-hour livestreaming event filled with passion and generosity!
Fantastic sponsors and donors, generous bidders, great businesses and individuals contributing auction items – it all added up to a successful event that is creating rainbows of support for people living with HIV here in our community.
Because of your support, it was the most important evening of the year for our CarePartners living with HIV as you gave generously to fund vital programs and support services. Powerful testimonials from Kyle, Ed, and Joe; wonderful welcomes from Lupita Murillo and Dan Uroff and Caroline Lochner, fantastic entertainment from Brian Justin Crum from America’s Got Talent, and amazing work from our emcee and auctioneer Bobby D!
Thank you to our event co-chairs and our great team of volunteers who pulled together our first major virtual event, and to everyone who joined to make is a wonderful success!
For the list of sponsors, major supporters, and planning team members, click here.
Living with HIV, Jerry Discovers the Amount of Support in Tucson That You Provide
For many years, Jerry found it very difficult to maintain and manage his health. He was living in rural Missouri, having to travel two hours to get medical care. He recalls having to “jump through hoops” to get help, finding it challenging to get medical providers to return his call or help him with his application for disability. Although he had some friends, he was living in a conservative area, with a lot of stigma about HIV.
When he decided to relocate, Jerry’s priorities included better medical care, a more accepting environment, and a drier climate with warmer weather. After some internet research, Jerry decided Tucson would be his destination. He gathered some clothes, his few belongings, and his dog Rocky packed them into his minivan, in the middle of a pandemic, and headed for a new life. Little did he know what would be in store for him in Tucson….
The Red Concert: An AIDS Benefit, Outside Under the Stars – Sunday, October 3
Join us for a night of music under the stars with the band Good Trouble on the Courtyard Stage at Monterey Court Café on Sunday, October 3, the doors open at 5pm, and the show starts at 6pm. Admission requires proof of vaccination or recent negative COVID-19 test (within 72 hours of concert). Advance tickets for the benefit concert are on sale for $20, and a portion of your food and beverage orders that night will support HIV programs as well. Tickets and reserved seating available at https://www.montereycourtaz.com
Good Trouble is Tucson’s most mischievous variety dance band – playing all your Classic Rock, Motown, R/B, Pop and Country favs – from the 60’s – 90s. From Eddie Money, to the Beatles, to the Queen of Soul and all those “One Hit Wonder Bands.” Check out their website with video clips here.
Proceeds jointly benefit the programs and services of TIHAN (serving people with HIV here in Tucson) and the Center for Health and Hope (providing support services to people affected by HIV globally). Sponsorship levels start at $50 – to make a tax-deductible donation or for sponsorship information and payment, click here. The Center is the fiscal sponsor for this event. For more information or to answer any questions, contact event co-chairs Jess Losoya (jlosoya@amityfdn.org) or Pat Fox (pfox12@cox.net).
Funder spotlight: Desert Diamond Casinos
For more than a decade, Desert Diamond Casinos has been a key partner supporting TIHAN’s programs and services. You know them for their exhilarating games, relaxing hotel, appetizing restaurants, and top entertainment. But did you know that Desert Diamond Casinos is also a major supporter of nonprofits serving Southern Arizona?
Desert Diamond Casinos works to create a better quality of life for members of the Tohono O’odham Nation and all people of Southern Arizona. Operated by the Tohono O’odham Gaming Enterprise, they provide grants to local nonprofits focused on health care, education, arts & culture, community, seniors and youth.
Desert Diamond Casinos is an annual sponsor of our Treasures for TIHAN benefit, which helps fund our programs and services. This year, their Public Relations Community Support Coordinator, Danielle Bautista, reached out to us, encouraging TIHAN to apply for COVID relief funds from them. We applied for funding for our programs that directly address essential needs for CarePartners, and their board of directors approved our request, providing a $5,000 grant of support! This month, because of Desert Diamond Casinos, we’re able to provide $25 gift cards for food support to our CarePartners facing food insecurity, and over the next year, we’ll be able to provide an additional 2,000 toiletry items in CarePackages to more than 300 people living with HIV.
So next time you are enjoying the entertainment of Desert Diamond Casinos, remember that you’re also supporting important programs that help people of the Tohono O’odham Nation as well as throughout Southern Arizona, including TIHAN! We must always remember that we are guests on the land of Indigenous people, the Tohono O’odham and Pascua Yaqui people.
Covid Update, and Thank you for Your Continued Vigilance!
A great big thank you to all the CarePartners, Volunteers and Staff who continue to observe all the safety protocols and precautions as we navigate the Covid-19 pandemic.
Pima County remains an area of high transmission for the virus so in order to provide the highest levels of protection to everyone at TIHAN, please review our continuing practices:
- To reduce the risk of being infected with the Delta variant and possibly spreading it to others, wear a mask all times while inside TIHAN offices. If eating, please do so in a private room behind a closed door. When drinking in open TIHAN office areas, briefly lower your mask while sipping.
- Access to our office is limited. All TIHAN staff and all regular in-office volunteers have already been vaccinated against the virus. We will be requiring proof of vaccination to anyone entering our offices. We encourage everyone to get vaccinated and all eligible persons to get the vaccine booster shot when available.
- In addition to mask-wearing, TIHAN will continue our Covid-19 screening questions, taking temperatures and requiring hand-washing for individuals entering our offices. We will also continue to sanitize high-touch areas and ask folks to practice social distancing.
- Four HEPA (high efficiency particulate air) filtration systems have been installed throughout the TIHAN offices as an added safety measure.
If anyone needs further information or clarification, please contact Greg at 520-299-6647 ext 204. Remember to stay safe, stay healthy!
Volunteer Spotlight: Dave Ingalls, The Person Behind the Website Magic!
Dave is TIHAN’s volunteer webmaster and has been for the last three years. How Dave, a Greater Boston, MA resident, came to volunteer for Arizona-based TIHAN is a true 21st century story!
Back in 2018, Dave received a notification from VolunteerMatch, an organization he had recently signed up with, that an organization named TIHAN in Tucson was looking for a Volunteer Webmaster, and working 100% remotely was in the job description.
Dave reviewed the TIHAN info online and quickly decided that supporting TIHAN was a worthy cause. Even though Dave lived in the Greater Boston area, he thought “what the heck” and contacted TIHAN via the VolunteerMatch.com listing. Dave said, “I quickly received an email response from the TIHAN Operations Manager, one thing led to another and I ended up TIHAN’s very remote volunteer webmaster!”
Dave continued, “Because of a recent illness, in 2017 I had to retire from my full-time Digital Marketing Manager job with a small lighting products manufacturer in the Greater Boston area. Since that position also included being the de facto company webmaster, a job I really enjoyed, I wanted to remain active, but in a volunteer capacity.”
“I truly enjoy maintaining and hopefully improving TIHAN’s website”, Dave said. “I particularly enjoy posting a version of the monthly email newsletter on the TIHAN site. It’s fun to be provided with so much interesting content each month. New, informative, interesting content is the life-blood of websites, and TIHAN’s team does a great job each month.”
Dave concluded, “I’ve made it as close to Tucson as Phoenix, but my wife and I then headed north to Sedona and the Grand Canyon. Spending time in Tucson, and of course, meeting the wonderful TIHAN folks, is definitely on our bucket list!”
We’re grateful for the time and expertise that Dave gives to TIHAN, posting our monthly enewsletter and our quarterly newsletter, as well as all the website updates and changes. He might be living 2,500 miles away from Tucson, but he’s making a tremendous impact on TIHAN and our ability to share news about our people, programs, and purpose. Thank you, Dave!
Featured CarePackage Need of the Month: Paper Towels
One of the ways that we help our CarePartners live well with HIV is by providing not only essential household items, but also products to help keep them safe. Our CarePackages are filled with donated items that people can’t purchase with their SNAP benefits (“food stamps”). One of the key items we include in each CarePackage is a roll of paper towels. And since we distribute CarePackages to more than 200 people living with HIV each month, we need a lot of paper towels!
Keeping the home clean and safe is important, and quality paper towels are one of the most requested items from our CarePartners living with HIV. If you are able, please consider donating rolls of paper towels to TIHAN, which is our featured CarePackage item of need this month. Donations can be dropped off outside the front door of the TIHAN office, Monday through Friday, 8:30am to 4:30pm. Thank you for your generous support of TIHAN and our mission and programs!
Americans Get a “D” on HIV PrEP and an “F” on U=U
From POZ Magazine: “Nearly a decade after the introduction of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and more than 10 years since researchers proved that effective HIV treatment prevents sexual transmission of HIV (known as Undetectable Equals Untransmittable, or U=U), Americans still haven’t gotten the memo. Or at least not enough of them have, according to GLAAD’s 2021 State of HIV Stigma Report.”
Too many people don’t know the life-saving information about HIV medications and prevention tools. Do you know about this info that can help you and people who you love?
Click here to read the article, with a link to the report.
Volunteering: Engaging with Your Community, Safely, Even During a Pandemic
There are lots of volunteer opportunities to help with TIHAN. If you are vaccinated and masked, we have some volunteer needs in the office, whether answering phones, doing data entry, or meeting with CarePartners.
We also have some remove volunteer jobs that you can do from home, whether it’s a committee that meets via Zoom or other projects you can work on from wherever you’re at. And occasionally we have outdoor events that count on volunteers, too. We have protocols in place to keep you safe but engaged.
If you’re interested in learning about current volunteer opportunities, visit https://tihan.org/volunteer/ and then contact Greg at 520-299-6647 to talk about next steps.
