Are you a Damien Center client? Help us out!

Damien Center clients, we need your help. We're getting ready to overhaul our website and communications, and we want to get your feedback before we hit the ground running. What information do you look for on our website? Is it easy to navigate? What's missing?

Our survey is quick and painless, but it will help us build a website that provides what you're looking for in the easiest way possible.

Who qualifies as a Damien Center client? If you're accessing (or have accessed in the past) any of our services, that's you! We hope you'll take a few minutes to help us help you by giving your thoughts and feedback.

Take our client survey now!

And the Oscar goes to...

Sunday is the 85th Academy Awards, and for at least one of us here at The Damien Center, that means movie-watching season is in full swing. The quest to see all nine Best Picture nominees before the red carpet gets rolled out is an annual tradition I share with a few friends, but luckily, the task is made easier by AMC's Best Picture Showcase. All nine films, two Saturdays, and lots of well-timed bathroom breaks.

Last Saturday kicked off with Amour, Les Misérables, Argo, and Django Unchained—not the most upbeat of movie marathons. After a long and emotional journey through love and death in Amour, we then took on the fate of France's poorest in Les Mis, the intense evacuation of six Americans during the Iran Hostage Crisis in Argo, and finally, Jamie Foxx's portrayal of a freed slave turned bounty hunter in the quintessentially Tarantino Django. The coming weekend will feature the remaining five Best Picture nominees: Beasts of the Southern Wild, The Life of Pi, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, and Lincoln.

And on Sunday, celebrities will get big, fancy awards. Best Picture, Best Director, Best Supporting Actor, Best Actress, Best Costume Design, Best Sound Editing—the list goes on and on. But two weeks ago, quietly, away from the clamor of the Best Picture nominees and the glitz of the red carpet, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences presented its annual Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards. These awards, folks, are the really incredible ones. The recipients are doing things that revolutionize the way movies are made, like making computer-generated creatures more realistic and improving workflow with software that can take on entirely new processes. You can read about the winners and be amazed here.

And what does this have to do with The Damien Center? We got to thinking—who's working behind the scenes here? Who are background technicians, the people who make things tick and innovate and move the field forward? Like the Scientific and Technical Achievement Award winners, they've got ideas and stories worth telling about, even if they don't get the Hollywood-ified treatment the stars do. So we're going to change that. We want you to know more about what's going on here at The Damien Center, so we're going to start featuring stories from our staff members. What do they do, why do they do it, who do they serve? What does a day in their shoes look like? Our care coordinators, HIV/STD testers, food pantry staff, housing managers, counselors, and many, many more are the real award winners around here. In the coming months, look for stories from these folks and others. You'll be amazed at the incredible things happening behind the scenes.

The Season of Giving

Did you know that we're the largest and oldest HIV/AIDS service organization in Indiana? Here are ten reasons to give a little extra this holiday season:

YOU can help make a difference!
Make a donation at www.damien.org/donate

#10: You can help serve the most people infected and affected by HIV in Indiana. Last year, we helped 1,230 people with HIV/AIDS; this holiday season, we expect to serve nearly twice as many people in December as we did last year.

#9: You can help end hunger. People living with HIV need nutritious meals to help their immune system fight the disease. We gave out over 150,000 pounds of food through our pantry this year.

#8: You can help shelter people with HIV. Stable, affordable housing helps people with HIV stay on medication. We helped house 70 families in 2011.

#7: You can help prevent the spread of HIV. We provided more than 2,000 free and confidential HIV tests so far this year - up from last year's total of 1,533.

#6: You can help keep young people safe from the disease; individuals 20-24 account for the highest rates of new infections. We reached more than 700 young people with information on how HIV is transmitted and how to keep themselves safe this year, and we expect that number to double in 2012.

#5: You can help end stigma and discrimination. We provide legal services for people infected or affected by HIV with discrimination issues, living and legal wills, and various other civil legal matters.

#4: You can help people with HIV get jobs. As medications get better, more people with HIV are living healthy lives they didn’t expect to have; we teach skills that help them reenter the workforce.

#3: You can help formerly incarcerated individuals receive interventions that reduce substance abuse and other risky behaviors. We help these individuals keep themselves and others safe from HIV.

#2: You can help link people with HIV to health insurance that makes life-saving medication affordable.

#1: You can help us end HIV. We distribute more than 5,000 condoms every year; without a cure, condoms are one of the only sure-fire ways we can stop the spread of HIV.