An AIDS Benefit
An AIDS Benefit
Every dollar from ticket purchases and donations - 100% of all CFL proceeds - goes directly to beneficiary organizations. An all-volunteer corps of artists and organizers led by members of Foundry United Methodist Church work yearlong to plan, practice, perform and stage an inspiring evening of music and entertainment that has raised some $800,000 from 17 concerts over 18 years. Foundry has hosted and supported the non-denominational Concert since it "premiered" as a cabaret evening in 1991.
Long after the music fades, proceeds from the Concert for Life provide life-saving resources for beneficiary organizations who serve the neediest, most at-risk HIV/AIDs communities in Washington, DC and Africa.
Beneficiaries of the 2010 Concert reported specific ways that proceeds have supported their work on behalf of people living with HIV/AIDS.
CFL funds enabled one of four 2010 Quality of Life Retreats that helped some 40 persons living with HIV/AIDs get needed health and legal services as well as expert counsel on confronting guilt, anger, addiction, loss, death and dying. "Participants feel welcome to explore these issues while experiencing fellowship, camaraderie, and joy in a safe environment not available elsewhere."
Proceeds from the 2010 Concert for Life proved to be crucial during a time of severe economic hardship for many patients at La Clínica del Pueblo, a trusted provider for the Latino community. "La Clínica was able to cover gaps in funding for its prevention services when clients most needed stability and access to care, and to do so with a distinguished level of quality and care." CFL funds assured that La Clinica "continue our testing work with day laborers and low-income communities in Maryland, while we were working to establish funding from the state and counties."
At Metro TeenAIDS, CFL funds were used to hire and pay two young people for the 40 youth team that MTA recruited, hired, trained and employed to be HIV education and outreach workers-going to youth in places and at times where regular MTA programming cannot go. The program for peers, the majority of whom are HIV positive or live in families affected by HIV/AIDS, provides youth with job skills, employment and mentoring to help them transition to adulthood. Many continue on to college or careers focused on community health and education. One youth captured it all recently by saying, "if I did not work at Metro TeenAIDS and if I was not here all the time-trouble would find me."
In poor urban and rural communities of South Africa, Little Angels cares for babies and children who are affected and infected by HIV/AIDS. These children are placed with Little Angels by the courts or child welfare organizations because they have nowhere else to go. With the support of CFL, Little Angels extended help with the launch of a day care center and the addition of two further crèches, so that "we are now able to provide for in excess of 300 additional babies and small children."
CFL 2010 funds reached Miriam's House at a time when severe financial difficulties accompanied the transition from the agency's Founding Executive Director of 17 years to new leadership. "Concert for Life funds truly gave Miriam's House a second life by helping it to weather a difficult financial storm and remain open for the women who we serve. This means that we were able to keep 18 formerly homeless women living with HIV disease off of the streets, sober, and living in a nurturing and safe environment."
Joseph's House, the newest CFL beneficiary, will use concert proceeds to hire overnight staff it needs to assure care for twelve more homeless men and women who are "desperately lonely and dying of end stage AIDS."