BRATTLEBORO — It was 1991. I was 56 and I needed a job. I had a 30-plus year gap in my resume, and I knew it wasn't going to be easy in a recession to find one. I had been a stay-at-home mom and now was on my own. Everything in my life had to be put on hold while I found a job.
When I walked into the Vermont Department of Employment and Training, it was just by chance. I had a bachelor of arts in education and a master's in creative writing. What kind of training could they give me?
Technically, they told me, I was a displaced housewife and entitled to help from the United States Government.
The government, they said, would pay me minimum wage, $4.25 an hour for 40 hours a week, for six months. A poverty miracle.
“And do you have anywhere in mind?” the case worker asked.
I looked at her blankly.
“Someone who will hire you,” she said kindly.
I took a breath and said in a whisper, “How about the Brattleboro AIDS Project?”
I knew the Project as a volunteer. And so that's where they placed me. Right where I'd wanted to be all along without knowing it.
I was on my way.
* * *
The Brattleboro AIDS Project was a few years old when I walked in holding Uncle Sam's hand. It had leaped into being earlier to meet one client's need. Volunteers had given hundreds and hundreds of working hours, their eyes on the cities, watching the epidemic come closer and closer and take on a rural face.
They originally met in an open meeting once a month, deciding what was needed and setting out to find the resources necessary. If you turned up, you found yourself joyfully welcomed and set to work immediately.
Support groups were organized for one client, then two, then three. A support group was organized for parents and partners of someone HIV positive. A buddy system was created.
Always, the Project was one nickel from going under. Its organizers raised $100 here, $1,000 there. By 1990, everyone was burning out.
Yet the client load grew.
* * *
So the organization took a major risk and hired an executive director, trusting that she could raise enough money to pay the rent and hire a staff. They hired Susan Bell, who provided everything and more that was needed. She was, and is, an inspiration to us all.
Everyone originally was paid part-time and worked full-time. I brought my $4.25 an hour stipend, enormous energy, and educational know-how. I was a walking government grant.
In the 1960s, we sang, “Where have all the flowers gone?” We could never have imagined the 1980s. AIDS wiped out a whole field of bright, creative minds. There was incalculable loss, most of which America refused to acknowledge.
The Project gave me a title: program assistant. I was a real voice on the phone. I organized a library about the epidemic. I was sometimes the only person in the office when people walked in.
* * *
A couple with white hair walks in the door holding hands as if to protect themselves from an unseen blow. I pull up two chairs, and we sit down.
“My son is ill,” she says. “He has AIDS.”
She darts a glance a me to gauge my reaction.
“He might be coming home. None of our relatives want him to. They don't want to eat with him.”
The man says nothing, just stares into space.
I give them simple information. “You can't get infected from caring for a person with HIV in the house.“
The woman looks at me hopefully. I can almost hear her say, “Can I trust her?”
“When your son comes home, he can call us. Or you can. We will help in any way we can,” I say. I can see the relief begin to unknot their shoulders.
And then the man begins to talk for the first time. He tells me about his son, the bewilderment over his diagnosis.
It all spills out in this small office.
The Project might be struggling to exist at this moment, but for this couple we are a light in the darkness.
Then they gather the brochures and the books into their arms, and go home, with that literature and my words, to educate those who will listen to them.
* * *
And then there is C, a tiny man, a diminutive athlete, immaculate in an ironed T-shirt and gold shorts with an aqua stripe.
He can't weigh more than 90 pounds. He is never still, pacing the office from one end to the other, opening and closing the door, peering out the window.
“My name's C,” he says. “I'm HIV positive, but I'm still beautiful.”
When he comes to light at the end of my desk, with a Judy Garland smile, his dark eyes are bleak. I'm scared, help me, they tell me.
“Darling, I'm so glad to meet you, “ he says.
A month later, I am sitting on the edge of a hospital bed while he ambles around the room in a little, blue bathrobe. He can't get out a whole sentence. Everything is a stutter. His feet dragged.
He recovers from this setback and moves up north.
One Monday morning, the phone rings. C had been in the hospital again. And then they are calling and telling me that he is gone.
* * *
That's how it was in the Eighties. It is now 2013. The Brattleboro Area AIDS Project is now the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont. This organization has met the needs of HIV-positive clients and their families and loved ones for 25 years.
It has seen HIV go from a sure death sentence to a chronic illness. It has gained funding. It has lost funding. It has met the epidemic head on with prevention and direct service. It has saved Windham County and Vermont millions and millions of dollars.
But most importantly, it has saved lives.
It is hard to prove something that doesn't happen, but I know there are fewer people diagnosed with HIV because of the work this amazing group of people has done and continues to do.
They are still there. The stories continue. Your help is still needed. Why don't you call 802-254-4444 today, and ask how you can help?