Matan – 2/5/10 – Aid for AIDS

On Friday, Sarah, Lenny, Alma, Olivia, Adam, Jasper, Katherine and I went to the New York office of Aid for AIDS. As we came in, we saw a room where there were organized and stacked medicine jars, a closet filled with crutches, wheelchairs, etc. and a few people having a meeting about what to do with and help third-world countries. They were all speaking in spanish, and it was unfortunate that most of us did not know quite a lot of spanish other than “uno,” “senior,” “seniorita,” and “hola.” At the moment, they were focusing on delivering medicine and other aid to help people in Haiti. The task that we were trying to complete at the office was folding posters and pamphlets with information about AIDS. In order to qualify for getting help from the organization, one either had to be HIV positive, or have AIDS. We were split into two groups, one folding posters, with Adam, Olivia and Jasper, and the other folding and placing pamphlets with information about how to prevent AIDS through a tool used during intercourse between two people, to put it into a non-derogatory way, with Lenny, Katherine, Sarah, Alma and I.  This is probably the most often referred to way of getting AIDS. Anyway, that took us about an hour or so until we were done with our task, and had been able to leave. This organization was one of the top organizations having to do with helping with AIDS victims. It sends a lot of medicine and every possible form of aid that they can get their hands on through donations. What they do is distribute donations coming from many caring people to the people in the world with HIV or AIDS. They really try to help people in need, and it obviously shows from their warm and welcoming attitudes.

Organizing donated material, particularly medicine:

The person we worked with (Hannah McDermott):

Donated wheelchairs, crutches, etc: