Episcopal Response to AIDS (ERA)
OUR MISSION STATEMENT: Episcopal Response to AIDS is an independent 501(c)(3) organization whose mission is to support, foster and financially enable HIV/AIDS ministries affiliated with Episcopal faith communities in the Greater New York area.
OUR METHOD: ERA funds existing congregational programs and provides seed money for innovative projects that serve the HIV/AIDS community with education, prevention, and direct services to both the infected and affected in the dioceses of New York, Newark and Long Island. We are lay leaders and clergy working together to inspire and mobilize congregational ministries. Our funding cycle is Jan 1st to Dec 31st. We conduct annual visits to our grantees, provide liturgical resources and aim to connect people with other resources. We envision building a pastoral care network.
OUR FOCUS: From its inception in 2006 through 2010, Episcopal Response to AIDS has awarded approximately $125,000 in 30 grants to 16 grassroots HIV/AIDS ministries in the Dioceses of Long Island, Newark and New York. These, often volunteer, parish-based ministries have included feeding programs for persons living with HIV /AIDS and their families, case management, complementary therapies, partnerships with local healthcare agencies to provide health fairs that include HIV awareness, testing, prevention and education, pastoral counseling, a personal hygiene pantry, spiritual growth and support groups for persons infected with HIV/AIDS and their caregivers, hospital and nursing home visitation, a special Oceanside retreat house for PLWA and also retreats for the infected and affected at a monastery on the Hudson.
OUR HISTORY and PHILOSOPHY: Since the beginning of the AIDS Walk in New York City over twenty years ago, there have been individual Episcopalians and certain Episcopal parishes walking to raise money for prevention of the spread of the HIV/AIDS virus and for services to those suffering from its effects. Initially, those monies they raised always went to G.M.H.C. (Gay Men's Health Crisis), which sponsored the Walk. Many of those same individual walkers and many of those same parishes also volunteered HIV/AIDS ministries in their local settings, often emphasizing healing for some of the spiritual dimensions of the pandemic or providing "safety nets" for PLWA who sometimes fell through the cracks in public services.
In 2001, two of those parishes decided to create some interparish fellowship by sharing a Eucharist before the Walk and a luncheon afterwards. One of the parishioners, Donald Snyder, then came up with the idea of a coalition team for Episcopalians, not unlike those that some industries have. He brought the idea to the Diocesan Episcopal AIDS Committee of the Diocese of New York (DEAC), and the first coalition team was formed for the 2002 Walk. It was a boon for smaller parishes, which might not have enough funds or enough walkers to qualify for a team but could all participate under the umbrella of this coalition team, which was called ERA, Episcopal Response to AIDS.
This new coalition team soon achieved Gold Team status - became one of the top twenty fundraisers - and came to be a model for other denominations. (DEAC continued to provide its organizational and financial support.) In 2005, the members of this coalition team learned about the change in rules for the Community Partners Program, which G.M.H.C. had initiated. Faith-based HIV/AIDS organizations were now eligible. If Episcopal Response to AIDS could become a tax-exempt 501(c)3 organization, it could use the monies it raised for parish-based AIDS ministries.
Judith Mason, who was Chair of DEAC, applied for ERA's incorporation and tax-exempt status, which was awarded in 2006. Suzanne Culhane became ERA's first Chair. Since then, Episcopal Response to AIDS has given out thirty grants to programs in the Dioceses of Long Island, New York and Newark through its September RFP. Ours is a working Board that volunteers an average of fifty hours per week. We raise monies for other volunteers, the hands-on person-in-the-pew ministries we particularly fund. All this generous, self-giving volunteer energy creates more of the same. In 2009, ERA's AIDS Walk Team raised more money than that of any other Community Partner and we were publicly recognized with an award given by GMHC.
We believe this is all due to the generosity of God - the best antiretroviral for the spiritual dimensions of the AIDS pandemic. Compromised immune systems, such as those of people living with HIV/AIDS, are very vulnerable to spiritual realities, whether for good or for ill. Often PLWA end up carrying many of the negativities around them, as Jesus did his cross. Some of those are the obvious ones like stigma and discrimination and some are simply consequences of the failings that all individuals and organizations - churchy or not - are heir to. PLWA are also characteristically profoundly affected by their encounters with and experiences of the health-giving, selfless love of the Gospel.
That's why the work of Episcopal Response to AIDS is above all grounded in and guided by the life of the Spirit. We try to consciously monitor both the internal and external processes of this ministry in order to live out with one another and to manifest in our efforts together, as fully as we can, our shared participation in God's own self-giving.