A look back at 2014 at The Damien Center

It's officially the last day of 2014, and we're officially running on adrenaline from all the exciting things that happened here over the past year! It was a busy one, and in the spirit of looking back in order to look forward, we put together this little Storify to help us out.

It's populated by photos from our Instagram, so if you like what you're seeing, hop on over and follow along for our 2015 adventures. Enjoy!

We're having an open house, and we want you to join us!

When The Damien Center purchased our historic building at 26 N. Arsenal Ave. a few years ago, an exciting new chapter began in the life of this building. This year, the former school turns 100, and we're celebrating with an open house! 

On Thursday, September 4 (that's two weeks from today), we invite you join us for a casual, come-one-come-all open house at our home just East of downtown at Washington St. and Arsenal Ave. Tour The Damien Center, meet our hard-working staff members, spin the prize wheel to win some Damien Center swag, and say "Happy Birthday" to our historic headquarters.

See some of the new things happening around the Center as well as learn more about our established programs. As we work toward lowering our patients' HIV viral loads and in turn improving the health of our community, we innovate, always working to find the most effective ways to meet the needs of HIV+ individuals in Central Indiana. We hope you'll stop by our open house to learn more about HIV and AIDS, what we do, who we are, and what our work means for our community. 

Here are the key details: 

What: Damien Center Open House
When: Thursday, September 4, 5:30-7:30pm
Where: The Damien Center, 26 N. Arsenal Ave., Indianapolis, IN 46203
Who: You and anyone you'd like to bring along!

Let us know you're coming by visiting our Facebook page, or just drop by on September 4!

Why Santorini Greek Kitchen gives back

This time of year, our days are filled with Dining Out for Life Ambassador trainings, last-minute preparations for one of our biggest fundraisers of the year, and lots of time spent communicating with our participating restaurants about the upcoming event. Indy's largest dining fundraiser is less than three weeks away, so this week, we got out and about in the city and delivered promo materials to all our restaurants so we can all get the word out. Lucky for us, Jeanette Sawi, co-owner of Santorini Greek Kitchen, had a few minutes to sit down with us and share why her restaurant continues to support The Damien Center via Dining Out for Life year after year after year.

A little background: In addition to serving up incredibly rich and flavorful Greek delicacies, Santorini is also one of our longest running Dining Out for Life participants. The event is in its 19th year, and Santorini has been on board for well over a decade. So why The Damien Center and why Dining Out?

Pre-Santorini, Jeanette was a nurse. While she was still a nursing student in Houston, TX, in the mid-1980s, Jeannette worked on the HIV/AIDS wing of a Houston hospital and saw the epidemic rear its ugly head on a daily basis. She saw people dying alone, hopeless and helpless, praying for a cure but knowing they wouldn't see one in their lifetime. So, as a nurse, she did her best to care for those with HIV, helping them live their last hours with dignity, showing them that no matter how stigmatized HIV was and would continue to be, she would continue to care. Incidentally, this was the objective of The Damien Center in its early days as well. When the agency was founded in 1987, at a time when little hope was on the horizon for a cure or better treatments, its staff and volunteers walked with people in their last days so they would know they were cared for until the end.

Today? Today, we are so fortunate to be helping people live instead of die. We are fortunate to see weekly and monthly breakthroughs in treatment and possible cures. We are fortunate to have 30+ HIV drugs on the market that do an exceptional job of saving lives. When Jeanette got into the restaurant business, she wanted to honor that part of herself that saw what she saw in Houston - the nurse, the caretaker. Supporting The Damien Center through Dining Out for Life is one (we think really generous) way that she gets to do that, and for this, we are so grateful.

We say our sincerest thanks to Jeanette and Santorini Greek Kitchen, which will be donating 50% of sales on April 25 back to The Damien Center and the local fight against HIV. Make a reservation at Santorini for April 25 by calling 317.917.1117. OPA!

25 Stories: The Next 25

25 years. 25 stories. Throughout 2012, our 25th year of service to Central Indiana, we turned our blog into a virtual melting pot of stories about HIV. We told you about Rob, who worked tirelessly to help people with HIV get the medical care they needed, and Evelyn, who was there with Earl Conner when he decided to dive head first into the AIDS epidemic by opening The Damien Center. You read about Mark, one of The Damien Center's original buddies and a lifelong HIV advocate, and Dr. Woody Myers, who stood by Ryan White's side and fought the stigma associated with HIV in the mid-1980s right here in our community. We shared stories from Charles, Elizabeth, Robert, David, and a dozen more people who, in some way or another, have been affected by HIV.

Well friends, we've got a confession to make. We only shared 24 stories with you. No, we didn't get lazy or forget. We were saving it. For you. For all of us. Number 25 is something more - something collective and holistic. It's about what we're doing now that's moving us into the future, toward an AIDS-free generation and toward healthier, happier lives for those already living with HIV.

Our grande finale, story 25, is about linking people to the care they need, like mental health and substance abuse counseling, housing assistance, a food pantry, free HIV testing, and Care Coordination—services that actually help lower the HIV viral load of our clients, improve their health, and make them less likely to transmit HIV to others. We think that's a story worth telling.

It's 2013 now, and we don't know about you, but we're chomping at the bit to see what the next 25 years will hold. We're ready to dream big, work hard, and make more history. Our 25th story is only just getting started. Will you join us?

25 Stories: World AIDS Day

If Dr. Woody Myers could ask HIV one thing, it would be this: “Let us into your secrets.” For Myers, as for many other who work in the HIV/AIDS field, HIV’s 31 years have been full of mysteries alongside triumphs, setbacks alongside progress. As former health commissioner of the state of Indiana, Myers has seen firsthand the ebb and flow of the epidemic as it has made its way around Indiana and the United States and across the globe.


Tomorrow is World AIDS Day, a day for people from all corners of the world to come together in fighting against HIV, show support those living with HIV, and honor those we’ve lost to this disease. People like Dr. Myers have been doing this for a long, long time. So how far have we come in 31 years? “You don’t have to die from it anymore,” says Meyers. “And that means if you have it, you can extend your life to almost normal by taking your medication and doing good healthy things. It’s not the death sentence that it used to be.”

Nevertheless, Myers shares cautionary words about the state of HIV/AIDS in other parts of the world. “It’s still a major, major public health issue and problem around the world,” he explains. “Although we’ve kind of got our arms around it, so to speak, in the United States, that’s not the case in many other countries, where the battle is far more difficult.” In Mozambique, for example, Myers estimates that only a third to half of HIV+ individuals are being treated and that roughly a third of the adult population is HIV+. “We still have a lot that we need to do and a lot that we need to learn,” he says, “but we’re making progress.”

And some of that progress, he reminds us, is in the form of research being done on HIV and other viruses that work in fascinating and often puzzling ways to interact with human cells. Myers anticipates that treatments like pre-exposure prophylaxis or even a cure or vaccine for HIV are the next wave of development. “The research on HIV has led us to a lot of interesting conclusions and new ideas as a result of understanding much more about how viruses interact with people,” he explains. “It’s also giving us new avenues to attack. The drugs that have been created and the methods used to fight HIV are going to be applicable to other diseases as well. And even though we don’t have a vaccine yet for HIV, we are finding ways to develop vaccines for a lot of other diseases that are viral. So it’s paying off in a lot of other ways.”

This World AIDS Day, we hope you’ll take a moment to think about and act on how you can continue fighting or join the fight against HIV and support those in your life, community, or world who are living with it. Here at The Damien Center, we focus on doing those things right here in Central Indiana, and we invite you to join us. You can read more about what we're doing to carry out our vision for an AIDS-free generation on our website, or find out more about World AIDS Day on aids.gov.

25 Stories: "We owe him compassion"

It’s 1986, and Dr. Woody Myers is standing before a crowd of medical professionals, media personnel, and concerned citizens in the auditorium at Indiana’s State Board of Health. As Indiana’s young, new state health commissioner, Myers knows this is his opportunity to show his community that Ryan White, the HIV+ 13-year old standing to his right, is just like any other kid. As the press conference to address White being banned from his Kokomo school gets underway, Myers, who’s only recently come to Indiana from the epicenter of the HIV epidemic in San Francisco, reaches over, puts his hand on Ryan’s head, and scruffs his hair.

And that one small gesture, he recalls, reminded people that Ryan was just a kid. “This is not the enemy. He is not a carrier of disease designed to infect you or anyone else. This is a little boy with hemophilia who got a very raw deal,” Myers remembers. “We owe him compassion, we owe him respect, we owe him our love, we owe him his dignity, we owe him the opportunity to be as normal as possible for as long as possible. And all the kid wanted to do was go to school and not be treated badly by people in his neighborhood.”

When White contracted HIV from a blood transfusion to treat his hemophilia, Dr. Myers explains, the health officer in Kokomo allowed local residents’ fear of their children contracting HIV through casual contact to determine his decision to ban the 13 year-old from school in Kokomo.

“From a public health standpoint, I couldn’t let that stand,” he said. “We told him, we know this is not spread by casual contact, so we support him going to school.” To get the message across, Myers held a press conference to show the public that “it was okay to be with people that had HIV.”

According to Myers, “people had done all kinds of awful things” to the Whites because of Ryan’s HIV status. Fear engulfed the small community of Kokomo. Gunshots were the last straw that led the family to move to Cicero, a community north of Indianapolis, where Myers and his team worked to make sure Ryan and his mother were welcomed and accepted. “Ryan wanted to go to school. That’s basically it,” he recalls. How did they do it? Through education, persistence, and a community of people willing to open their minds and hearts.

“The long and short of it is that on the first day of school there was a welcoming committee,” Myers says. “They came out and they hugged him when he came to school that first day. They just made him feel as if he were just part of the gang. And that was exactly what we wanted.”

As health commissioner in Indiana, Myers went on to put Indiana on the map as a leader in health education, not some “backwoods, can’t-think, hillbilly kind of state.” Today, we continue the physician’s crusade through education, prevention, testing, and programs that both empower those who have HIV and fight to prevent the spread of it. Join us today.

HIV: Everyone's Disease

As we move closer to wrapping up our 25th year of service to Central Indiana, we have to ask ourselves: Why do we do what we do? Who should care about HIV/AIDS? Who does it affect?

And the answer, readers, is you. And me. Our neighbors and friends. Our families and our community. Right here in Central Indiana, thousands of people are affected by HIV, whether they have it, a friend or family member has it, someone they know or love has died from it, or - like 20% of those who are HIV+ - they have it and don't know it yet.

Check out this re-cap video to hear from some of the folks we featured earlier in the year and to get your mind wandering about how much this issue matters in our city. The individuals we've been talking to throughout the year are an important reminder that HIV truly is everyone's disease.

25 Stories: Bernadette Goes Uptown

In a few short weeks, we’ll be transforming the Indianapolis Downtown Marriott into a grand gala, a masquerade ball to celebrate our 25th year of service to Central Indiana, an evening to outshine all others. The Grande Masquerade is nearly upon us. With this magnificent [read: super fun and fancy] celebration just on the horizon, we thought it’d be fun to look back at the history of our fundraisers. Turns out, The Damien Center has a legacy of hosting rockin’ parties, performances, and other fundraising events to get the word out and raise money.  Tom Alvarez, one of our earliest supporters and fundraisers, sat down with us to talk about “Bernadette Galanti Goes Uptown for The Damien Center,” which was, according to Tom, as fantastic as it sounds.

At the time (late 80s/early 90s), Bernadette Galanti was a well-known performer at the Indiana Repertory Theatre’s Cabaret. (Yes, the IRT had a Cabaret. Yes, we wish they still did.) As a performer who had lived in New York City for some time in the 1980s, Bernadette knew people who had HIV/AIDS and was interested in supporting the cause, so Tom, a former television producer, enlisted her to put on a show for The Damien Center. “It was one night only," Tom says, “and it was a first-class affair all the way around.” As a result of her one-woman show at Broad Ripple’s Vogue Theater, Bernadette became very popular within the gay community and “became our local Liza Minelli,” Tom recalls. This event, he says, was one that helped organize and solidify the gay community “not only around the AIDS issue but by being public and by being out there.”

What did Tom and his fellow organizers learn from this, one of their first fundraising undertakings? Sponsors sponsors sponsors. “Most of the proceeds went toward the expenses,” Tom says, “so what we learned was that you really have to have sponsorships for those kinds of things. This was all kind of virgin territory, not only to us, but to the gay community in general.” And with that, we'd like to thank our extremely generous Grande Masquerade sponsors, especially our Event Presenting Sponsors, McNamara Florist and Marion County Public Health Department.

Now, back to the show. It wasn’t just for fun. Bernadette’s performance was, like other fundraisers for AIDS service organizations at the time, critical to how early activists were able to get the word out about AIDS in places like Indianapolis. “AIDS like in many other places, forced people to come forward and to come out, because it was very clear to us that if we didn’t, it was just going to make things worse,” Tom explains. “If we didn’t step forward to educate our community, the larger community, the epidemic would as quickly or grow more quickly.”

So, people like Tom stepped up and started to organize events like Bernadette’s show. Today, we have events like Grande Masquerade that continue the legacy of FUNdraising, bringing awareness to HIV/AIDS as a cause, and bringing people together in the name of a better community. So whether you’ve been around long enough to remember “Bernadette Galanti Goes Uptown” or are just getting your feet wet in supporting The Damien Center, we thank you and hope you’ll join us for this year’s Grande Masquerade on October 20.

Happy birthday to (all of) us!

Birthdays are good for celebrating, laughing, imbibing, indulging. You know the drill: cake, cocktails, loved ones, favorite places and spaces. But they're also good for looking back. Reflecting. Thinking about how far you've come and what you've been doing that matters to you and your values.

Today, I - Kimberly, your faithful Damien Center blogger and marketing coordinator - have been doing just that as I celebrate my 27th birthday. I've been asking myself, what have I been doing these last few weeks, months, and years that enriches my life and others', that makes my community a better place?

Here at The Damien Center, we've also been celebrating our birthday - all year long. It's our 25th year serving those affected by HIV in Central Indiana, and we're so proud of the legacy we have as Indiana's oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization. What we do and how we do it didn't start last year or last month. It started in 1987, when a caring, progressive group of people got together to support a community in crisis.

Birthday reflections, for us, have us looking at who we served, how we served them, and where our (your) funding dollars went. So, what have we been doing that matters to us, our values, and our community? In 2011, we:

• performed 2,315 free HIV tests
• reached 796 youth through prevention education
• served 1,126 clients through Care Coordination
• helped 96 families find housing
• fed 616 clients through our food pantry
• assisted 124 clients in receiving emergency financial assistance

And this is just the beginning. Birthdays are also for looking ahead to the coming year(s), planning for a strong future, setting goals, and living life. So as I and The Damien Center look ahead to our next 25 years, we hope you'll help us celebrate both where we came from and where we're going.

Looking for ways to honor our 25 year legacy? Make a donation, volunteer, walk with us in the 2012 Indiana AIDS Walk, or snag a ticket for swankiest gala in town, the 25th Annual Grande Masquerade.  

25 Stories: Losing a Buddy

A few weeks ago, you read about the beginning of Mark Lee’s journey to becoming an AIDS activist (the part where he visits a gay bar for the first time and realizes he has to take action), but it didn’t stop there. A few years after his unexpected introduction to what AIDS is and how he could help, Mark got involved with The Damien Center’s Buddy Support Program through Howard Warren, an HIV+ pastor at his church. Mark was one of the Center’s original buddies when he joined in 1987.

The program, according to Mark, was designed so that two people would be assigned to each person with HIV to serve as a support system for whatever was needed. “Our job was just to help them,” Mark explains. And help they did—with anything. It was the buddies’ job to help with transitioning to an HIV+ lifestyle, taking medications, advocating at doctor appointments, or even planning for their funerals. “Ideally you wanted to become a friend with them first, but a lot of times people didn’t have time for that,” Mark says. “They were thrown into dealing with hospitals who didn’t want to deal at all with people with AIDS and were being discriminatory, or with family members.”

Mark’s first buddy through the program was Bob, one of the last surviving members of the original group of People with AIDS. Though their relationship got off to a rocky start—Bob was wary of the program and Mark had recently lost a dear friend to AIDS—they ended up becoming close. “He was my best friend,” Mark recalls. Bob was tough, determined to live on in the face of HIV. Though the survival rate at the time was only six months to two years, Bob had already lived three years with the disease when he and Mark met, and he would live for another three after that.

But for Mark, his friendship with Bob became a source of guilt. He would go to Buddy Support Program meetings at The Damien Center each week and feel guilty because his buddy was in good health while others were struggling with ill health, or worse, with the death of their buddy. “I told them one time I felt guilty, because all we did was laugh and have a good time, and not really anything as far as helping him with doctors or anything like that,” Mark explains. “Then someone pointed out—that’s actually how it’s supposed to work. You develop this friendship, this trust between you, so that when he does need you, then you’ve already established that friendship, and he’s able to lean on you, and you can help him out with whatever he needs.” And that’s exactly how it panned out for Mark and Bob. When Bob eventually lost his eyesight and wasn’t as healthy as he had once been, Mark helped him through the last few months of his life.

Today, though the Buddy Support Program no longer exists, The Damien Center offers support to HIV+ individuals in the form of Care Coordination services. Highly trained Care Coordinators work with our clients to connect them with all the resources they need to life healthy lives and move forward each day with dignity. Stable housing, medical care, insurance, nutritional needs, counseling—clients and Care Coordinators work together to determine what the individual needs to be healthy and happy. Losing Bob was painful for Mark, but because of important support mechanisms like the Buddy Support Program and Care Coordination, those living with HIV can find the resources and relationships they need at The Damien Center.

25 Stories: Trial by Fire

Steve Everett’s first job at an AIDS service organization was supposed to be temporary. He’d taken an office manager position at Indiana Community AIDS Action Network (ICAAN), then housed in The Damien Center, just until he found his first teaching job. But instead, Steve, who grew up in rural Indiana with little exposure to the HIV/AIDS crisis, became unexpectedly passionate about the cause and has continued to work in the field since he first set foot in The Damien Center in 1991.

But those days, according to Steve, never saw a dull moment. “It was kind of trial by fire in the early days working here,” he says. Because The Damien Center was housed in an archdiocese building with a handful of other HIV-related organizations—Indiana Cares, ICAAN, Indiana Youth Group, Project Outreach, to name a few—the Center became a safe haven both for people infected with HIV and those who served them. That also meant people came from far and wide to seek the HIV/AIDS services offered by The Damien Center.

“There were many, many people that were coming to The Damien Center in the very end stages of the disease. They sometimes would walk in and just collapse,” Steve explains. “It was not uncommon to leave to go to lunch and then come back and there’d be an ambulance parked right at the front door.”

Those in need of care, says Steve, would drive in to the Center from as far Paoli, Indiana; Effingham, Illinois; or Dayton, Ohio because very few places in the Midwest outside of Chicago existed to provide these needed services. “They would hear about this Damien Center and make the trip,” Steve says, “but a lot of times their health was in such bad shape, that they had to go right to the hospital.”

Today, Steve serves as the director of programs for the Indiana Family Health Council, a quasi-federal agency that provides family planning services, testing, and more across Indiana. But he hasn’t forgotten his early experiences working in the field. “Back in the early days, it was by the seat of our pants,” he says. “Everything was kind of ‘let’s see what happens and then we’ll tweak it as we go along.’ Everything was very much a crisis approach.” The approach to prevention and care now, he says, has improved drastically and is “much more formalized.” Through his service in state government, private philanthropy, and nonprofit organizations, Steve has worked tirelessly to continue moving Indiana forward in providing services for those affected by HIV and in preventing the spread of it.

25 Stories: Bullwinkle's and GRID - Learning About AIDS in 1982

When Mark Lee, a young IU Hoosier with a painfully shy disposition, mustered up the courage to sneak into Bullwinkle’s one fateful evening in 1982, he had no idea his world would be turned upside down. Anxious about being carded and uncertain whether or where he belonged on the disco dance floor at one of Bloomington’s mainstay bars for the gay community, Mark turned to a publications rack for comfort and picked up the first thing he could find.

Skimming through an arbitrary publication, only half-focused on its contents, Mark’s eyes fell on an article about GRID (Gay-related immunodeficiency), a disease that would capture his attention for many years to come. Gay-related immunodeficiency, an early term for AIDS, was taking the gay community by storm, but fear was spreading just as quickly.

“No one knew where it was coming from,” Mark recalls. “They just knew that gay men in New York and San Francisco were dying of this horrible disease and that they were dying within six months of being diagnosed.”

For Mark, it was a wake-up call. Besides being his “first real experience in a gay bar or anything in the gay community,” Mark was drawn in by what he could do to keep himself safe in the midst of a national crisis. “I did a lot of reading,” he says. “I read everything I could on it: signs you might be positive, how to take care of yourself, anything.”

According to Mark, he came out just as the gay community was making a major shift. On the one hand, an era of promiscuity, bath houses, and anonymous sex was ending, while AIDS was only just beginning. “People started dying,” Mark says, “and then people started taking notice and taking care of themselves.”

Despite the initial fear and uncertainty, in the 30 years since Mark’s first foray into Bullwinkle’s, he’s become an advocate and activist for HIV/AIDS in too many ways to count. He was one of The Damien Center’s original “buddies,” a role in which he was paired up with HIV+ individuals to build friendships and develop a support system. More on that later. He also went on to work for Indiana Community AIDS Action Network and AIDServe Indiana and continues to support The Damien Center today. Though Bullwinkle’s closed its doors in 2006, the significance of Mark’s work in fighting HIV/AIDS and supporting those affected by it lives on.

My Name is Earl ... Conner.

Earl Conner: retired Episcopalian minister and committed AIDS activist. Not the namesake of The Damien Center—we'll get to that in a minute—but the man behind what has become Indiana's oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization. In the mid-1980s, when HIV and AIDS were still murky, scary, concepts, Earl stepped up to fight the spread of this deadly disease in his community. His alarm at the growing AIDS crisis in Indianapolis led him to seek a coordinated community response by uniting existing groups within one facility. With support from Christ Church Cathedral, an Episcopal church, and the Cathedral of Saints Peter & Paul, a Catholic church, Earl established the Damien Center in an empty and forgotten archdiocese building in April of 1987.


Earl's friend Evelyn describes those first few months of planning and opening The Damien Center in this post. Though founded as an inter-faith collaboration, The Damien Center is now a fully independent, non-sectarian, not-for-profit public corporation, and Earl's vision for Indianapolis has, in 25 years, saved thousands of lives and enriched thousands more. The Damien Center is now a leader in HIV prevention, education, awareness, and advocacy. In 2011 alone, we served 1,126 clients through care coordination and administered 2,412 free HIV tests.

So where does The Damien Center's name come from? The Center is named after the Blessed Father Damien, a Belgian Catholic priest famed for his compassionate care for those affected by Hansen's Disease, or leprosy, on the Hawaiian island of Molokai. Fr. Damien battled the religious and societal rejection of those living with the disease, choosing to live with and among them in the Molokai "lepers' colony" from 1873 until his own death from Hansen's Disease in 1889. He was beatified by Pope John Paul II and became a saint in October of 2009.

His compassion and care, along with Earl Conner's vision, live on through the work we now do at The Damien Center.

25 Stories: Kim Johnson

Kim met Joe in 1974, and the next 28 years of their lives were a whirlwind of activities: anniversary parties, family deaths, building careers, and more.

In 2002, Kim fell ill with one disease after another. Shingles, panic attacks, coughing, a “type” of pneumonia…the list goes on. Eventually, Kim became hospitalized in September 2002, and doctors gave him an HIV test.

“Mr. Johnson, you have AIDS.”

With a CD4 count of 26 at diagnosis*, Kim’s family never expected him to leave the hospital – but Kim never thought about dying. Unfortunately, Joe wasn’t prepared to live his life without Kim, so he took his own life. When Kim left the hospital, it wasn’t because he was well; it was because there was a funeral.

The next two years were full of grief, doctors, starting medication, and learning everything he could about HIV/AIDS. In 2004, Kim’s friends flew him to New Mexico for a New Year’s Day brunch where Kim met John.

The two hit it off instantly, talking every day for a month. It was then that Kim divulged his HIV status. John said it was a non-issue; he knew how it was spread and how to prevent the virus’ spread. “He was in no way judgmental,” Kim remembers.

Eventually, John moved in with Kim in Indianapolis. To this day, they are a “discordant couple,” or a couple where one partner is HIV-positive and the other is HIV-negative. The disease doesn’t define their relationship.

Kim is currently the co-chair of The Damien Center's Client Services Committee and has been actively involved with the Ryan White Planning Council.

“My new mission now is to be more open, and to get out the message about HIV/AIDS.”

* A person’s CD4 count is how many CD4 cells a person has; these cells are the part of the immune system that HIV attacks. A person with a healthy immune system may have anything between 500 and 1600; a CD4 count under 200 qualifies a person for an AIDS diagnosis. A CD4 count of 0 is almost certain death.

25 Stories: Colin Hammar

Many people in Colin’s generation haven’t lost friends or family to HIV thanks to new treatment options that significantly prolong life. “That’s going to be one of the changing factors of the younger generation born in the mid-80s and onward.” The sociology grad student thinks that this, coupled with the fear and stigma associated with the disease, has made many people distance themselves from the issue.

Colin also feels that there may be a cultural HIV white-washing. Many people perceive HIV/AIDS as a gay disease; that stigma still exists, though the most affected populations are changing. HIV is often introduced as an STD like any other, and Colin is frustrated that many schools do not teach that some genders, sexualities, and demographics are more at-risk. Often, the social history isn’t taught until college. This doubled-edged sword means that all populations are reached, but at-risk populations are losing out by not highlighting the history or reality.

It’s these attitudes and beliefs that inspired Colin to make a difference and become active on college campuses; he often brings in speakers and does educational prevention outreach.

“My work in my graduate program and my research has let me grab my own personal experiences…to be the voice and perspective [for the disease], which is traditionally left out in a lot of academic circles.”




Share your story with us! Leave a comment or email Brenden Hudson at bhudson@damien.org.

25 Stories: Elaine Cox

Dr. Elaine Cox has been an HIV care provider for 16 years, specializing in pediatric HIV. She only planned to do it for a short time, but it quickly became her life’s work. She remembers when even doctors were afraid of people with HIV 16 years ago, and how end of life care was the only option.

“Our biggest sadness is when our patients leave pediatric care and go to the adult side – which is a great problem to have!” Dr. Cox says, smiling. With the current medications on the market for HIV, these children can go on to have a long, healthy life.

But Dr. Cox notes that though HIV is a medical disease, there’s an entire social aspect to it. “We do still see some bullying and ostracizing. We see some families where, if a family’s [HIV] status gets out, an apartment is suddenly no longer available.”

Despite the hardships, Dr. Cox knows that there’s hope. Her patients are going to college, getting scholarships, and doing very well. “They’re overcoming all sorts of obstacles!”

Like her patients, Dr. Cox is also conquering hurdles; to combat stigma and normalize HIV testing, she helped start a legislative effort to get prenatal HIV screenings for pregnant mothers. It passed.

Pausing to reflect on her work in the HIV community, she remembers thinking that being in the HIV field in the 1990s was just a phase in her career. “Sometimes, you fall into the best of things without ever knowing it.”


Share your story with us! Leave a comment or email Brenden Hudson at bhudson@damien.org.

25 Stories: Rob Bullock

Rob Bullock was a social security adjudicator in the early 90s; at the time, The Damien Center had just started. There were no social security benefits for people with HIV, so many people were denied.

Rob knew that people were dying, and that they needed care. He began looking through the 5,000 page operations manual to try and find the secondary diseases that would help get people living with HIV the benefits they needed.

Through his hard work, Rob earned a reputation in the community as an advocate for people with HIV. He was soon asked to work for The Damien Center in 1992, where he oversaw most client-related activities. School systems were under pressure from parents who did not want their children receiving safer sex messaging; instead, Rob and The Damien Center were asked to provide presentations so that the students would get the information that would one day save their lives.

Rob remembered how there was (and still is) cultural pressure for men in the Midwest to get married and have children. Many married men would contract HIV from discreet sex with other men, and then have unprotected sex with their wives – thus passing on the disease.

It’s much better now that HIV isn’t a death sentence, but it’s still out there. “I don’t think we hear the HIV message as much as we used to because it’s not as imminent,” said Rob. “People aren’t dying as quickly.”


Share your story with us! Leave a comment or email Brenden Hudson at bhudson@damien.org.

25 Stories: Evelyn Myers

Rev. Earl Connor retired in 1986, but Evelyn knew he was working on something from the hints he dropped. “AIDS.” “AZT.” “Test positive.” When Earl asked Evelyn about properties for sale, she had no idea that she was about to help found what would become Indiana’s oldest and largest HIV/AIDS service organization.

Earl opened The Damien Center in June 1987 in an empty archdiocese building. “When we started, the phone never rang. Nobody was there, and nobody knew much about us,” said Evelyn. To help spread the word, the Center hosted an open house; because of the stigma surrounding the disease at the time, they had no idea if they would be picketed or if anybody would come.

After the open house, Evelyn saw the cavernous building grow into a bustling place with furniture, volunteers, and clients, led by the hardworking reverend. Together with a team of volunteers and a handful of staff, The Damien Center became the first truly coordinated effort to care for people who had contracted HIV.

Apart from The Damien Center, Evelyn was a quiet champion for HIV, in her own humble way; when the disease was new, she noticed that people would avoid those living with HIV in church. To combat the ignorance, she decided to lead by example and be the first to take the Eucharist after people with HIV. “I would like you to think that I knew I was on the cutting edge and doing something that was unique,” she said. “But I didn’t. I was just helping out a friend.”


Share your story with us! Leave a comment or email Brenden Hudson at bhudson@damien.org.

HIV/AIDS Timeline

In June of 1981, five gay men were diagnosed with what we now know as AIDS. In celebration of the past 30 years of HIV/AIDS and the 25th anniversary since The Damien Center was founded, here’s a look at how far we've come:


• 1982: The disease is named AIDS, or Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome; new cases of AIDS in infants are reported.

• 1983: Dr. Robert Gallo suggests that a retrovirus probably causes AIDS. The CDC identifies all major routes of transmission and rules out transmission by casual contact, air, water, food, or environmental factors.

• 1985: ELISA, the first commercial HIV blood test is licensed by the FDA. At least one case of HIV has been reported in every region of the world. Indiana teen Ryan White contracts AIDS due to a blood transfusion for his hemophilia and is refused entry into his middle school.

• 1986: The International Committee on the Taxonomy of Viruses declares that the virus causing AIDS will be known as HIV, or the Human Immunodeficiency Virus. The Surgeon General urges parents and schools to teach children about AIDS and condom use.

• 1987: The first drug antiretroviral drug treatment, AZT, is approved by the FDA. The FDA also approves the Western Blot Blood Test Kit, a more specific test for HIV antibodies. The Damien Center is founded.

• 1989: The number of AIDS cases in the United States reaches 100,000.

• 1990: The US Congress enacts the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) that prohibits discrimination against individuals with disabilities, including people living with HIV/AIDS.

• 1991: Earvin “Magic” Johnson announces that he is HIV-positive.

• 1992: AIDS becomes the #1 cause of death for men ages 25-44.

• 1993: The CDC expands the definition of AIDS, declaring anybody with a CD4 count under 200 to have AIDS. Three new clinical indicators of AIDS are added.

• 1994: AIDS becomes the leading cause of death for all Americans 25-44. The FDA also approves an oral HIV test, the first non-blood-based antibody test for HIV.

• 1995: Olympic Diver Greg Louganis announces that he is HIV-positive. The FDA approves the first protease inhibitor, ushering an era of highly active antiretroviral therapy (HAART). 500,000 cases of HIV have been reported in the US.

• 1996: The number of new AIDS cases declines for the first time. It is no longer the leading cause of death for Americans 25-44, though it remains the leading cause for African Americans in that age group.

• 1997: HAART becomes the new standard of HIV care. AIDS-related deaths decline 47%, but drug resistance has become more common.

• 1998: The CDC issues the first national guidelines for antiretroviral therapy. The US Department of Health and Human Services determine that Needle Exchange Programs (NEDs) are effective and do not encourage the use of illicit drugs. The CDC reports that AIDS-mortality in African Americans are almost 10 times that of Whites.

• 1999: The CDC gives a new HIV case definition. The WHO announces that HIV is the fourth biggest killer worldwide, and the #1 killer in Africa. WHO estimates 33 million people are living with HIV worldwide, and 14 million have died of AIDS. VaxGen begin the first human vaccine trials in Thailand.


• 2000: The US declares HIV/AIDS as a threat to US national security.

• 2001: The US Health Resources and Services Administration begins to focus on individuals who are HIV+ but are not receiving services. The CDC announces a new plan to cut annual HIV infections in the US in half within five years.

• 2002: The FDA approves the first rapid HIV testing kit. Unlike other tests, this can be stored at room temperature and requires no specialized equipment, allowing for more widespread HIV testing. Worldwide, 10 million people 15-24 and 3 million children under 15 are living with HIV. 3.5 million new infections will occur in sub-Saharan Africa this year, and 2.4 million Africans will die of AIDS.

• 2003: The CDC estimates that 27,000 of the 40,000 new infections that occur each year are the result of transmission by individuals who do not know they are infected. VaxGen announces that its vaccine trial failed.

• 2004: The CDC approves the use of oral fluid samples with a rapid HIV diagnostic test kit that provides results in 20 minutes.

• 2006: The CDC revises HIV testing recommendations, advising routine HIV screening for all adults 13-64, with a yearly screening for those at high risk. The University of Chicago finds that medical circumcision reduces the risk of acquiring HIV by 53% during heterosexual intercourse.

• 2007: The CDC reports that over 565,000 people have died of AIDS in the US.

• 2008: The CDC releases new data for HIV in the US, suggesting that the incidence of HIV in the US is much higher than previously thought. (56,300 new infections per year vs. 40,000.) These new estimates are not an increase in HIV infections, but reflect a more accurate way of measuring new infections. A spearate analysis suggests that theannual number of new infections was never as low as 40,000, and that it has been relatively stable since the late 1990s.

• 2009: President Obama calls for the first National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the US. The CDC finds that Washington DC has a higher rate of HIV prevalence than West Africa. The FDA approves the 100th antiretroviral drug. President Obama modifies the ban on federal funding for needle exchange programs.

• 2010: The US lifts the HIV travel and imigration ban and releases the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy for the United States. Antiretroviral-based vaginal microbicide is found to be safe and effective at reducing risks of new HIV infections in women by 39%; when used as directed, it ould reduce risks by 54%. The National Institute of Health announced that a daily dose of HIV drugs reduce the risk of HIV transmission in men who have sex with men by 44%.

• 2011: Public debate begins on whether the longstanding ban on transplants of HIV-infected organs should be dropped. The US Department of Health and Human Services launches a comprehensive response in the 12 jurisdictions with the highest AIDS burden.

World Hepatitis Day

This Thursday (July 28) is World Hepatitis Day! Hepatitis is when your liver is inflamed, and five viruses are known to cause it. Here are our top five reasons we care.

1) A lot of people with HIV are also infected with hepatitis because it's a similar mode of transmission. In fact, the CDC reports that 50-90% of people who contracted HIV through intravenous drug use are living with the hepatitis C virus (HCV).

2) One in twelve people in the world are infected with either hepatitis B or C, according to the World Hepatitis Alliance.

3) At a presentation by ViiV today at The Damien Center, hepatitis drugs can often interfere with HIV drugs. Sometimes, this makes doctors choose between treating HIV or treating the hepatitis.

4) The CDC also notes that HCV is more serious in people who are also infected with HIV. A coinfection (when a person has more than one infection) leads to quicker liver damage.

5) Your liver is part of what cleans your blood and gets rid of toxins. If left untreated, people with viral hepatitis can have liver scarring (cirrhosis), which can lead to liver cancer, liver failure, death, and more. The good news is that we have vaccines for hepatitis A and B and treatment for all forms of viral hepatitis - you just need to get tested and know!

6) (BONUS!) A bonus reason that we care about hepatitis is because some people can go for years without having any symptoms. It's very important that you are tested for hepatitis as regularly as you're tested for HIV!

For more information about World Hepatitis Day, please visit the World Hepatitis Alliance.

Have you had your vaccinations for hepatitis A and B? Have you also been tested for hepatitis C? What are you doing to stay safe? Let us know!