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1980s: Hanging out with my 6th grade friends I hear my first newstory about "GRID", the gay-related immune deficiency disease.  A few years later I visit Casey House, where I encounter men dying slowly and agonizingly of AIDS, no treatment available to save them

1990s: HIV is now in the blood supply.  The Canadian Red Cross deems all gay men a threat and bans them from donating.  There are student protests at my university, seeking to ban the CRC from running donor clinics so long as this policy remains in place

2000s: The hospitals all have dedicated AIDS wards, where some of the most complex patients are admitted.  Medications are introduced, resistance develops, and another medication is tried instead.  There is a constant battle against an endless series of opportunistic infections and strange types of cancer

2010s: Highly-active anti-retroviral therapy (HAART) has rendered HIV a largely-manageable disease, like diabetes or lupus.  The HIV wards have closed, Canadian Blood Services begins to ease its donor deferral criteria, and a sense of complacency begins to settle over the medical profession and the population in general 

2020s: The gay men I know are all successful, self-assured, unapologetically themselves.  I encounter a new population of individuals living with HIV: those from low-resource countries who acquired their disease from their partners or the medical system, those fleeing smaller and more remote communities in Ontario who have been rejected by their families and communities. 

These are the individuals we are raising funds for: people living in poverty and social marginalization, even as their disease has been brought under control.  The funds go towards helping them obtain food and shelter and medical supplies, and towards giving them a place to go that will accept them without judgement.  

Fundraising helps pay for these things.  It also sends a message: you are seen, and you're worth fundraising for.

Thanks for your support :-)