2001: Our First Year

 

It is hard to believe we have come to the end of our first year. The last year has been a whirlwind of events for our country, which has directly impacted the AIDS community, as it has all charities. Our national focus has shifted to the global front, yet our domestic needs continue to grow daily. Friends-Together has renewed our commitment to serve the infected and affected communities on the frontlines of the AIDS war. The following is an update of what we accomplished in our first year.

 

The year began with a number of special activities. Gulf Coast High, in Naples Florida, began shooting a documentary in December of 2000, following Cathy to schools, churches and community events around the state. The shooting and production continued until May and had a grand premiere in August at the Naples Philharmonic.

 

The first week of January was a wonderful time. The Oxygen network sent a phenomenal producer to tape a segment about our educational efforts. Rachel followed Cathy to Immokalee Middle School, where she and the team from Gulf Cost High School shared resources for both projects. She also captured Cathy, Steve and the kids in a rare moment of shopping for clothes and makeup to attend the TOYA event in Washington, DC later in January. The story aired in February and reran a number of times; each resulted in emails and calls for information, and proved to be a great awareness event.

 

January was a busy month. Accompanied by Julie Spraque of Gulf Coast High School, Dr. Bill Murray and Jo Edgerton from Sebring, Cathy and Steve traveled to Washington DC where the TOYA (Ten Outstanding Young American’s Award) was given to Cathy for her educational efforts. This was a spectacular event and happened because of the hard work of the Naples and Winter Haven Jaycees organizations. Both of these groups have exhibited a strong commitment to HIV/AIDS awareness, we thank them for their continued support.

 

February is always a busy time, in the world of AIDS, as we participate in AIDS Compassion Week activities. This year we at Friends-Together had a huge task, on our hands. We co-sponsored with Florida Southern College, a Names Project AIDS Quilt Display and woven through the event were different educational activities geared at different segments of the population, from youth to medical professionals to the spiritual community. By the end of the six days we all needed a long nap.

 

March, April and May we were busy with school activities. This time is traditionally when middle schools in Florida do their Human Growth curriculum so it is always a busy time. We were excited to be asked to speak at a state conference in Ft Walton Beach. We took this speaking opportunity to do something important to us; we presented a workshop entitled “Families Created Out of Crisis”. This workshop met with a huge audience, we had an hour and a half to present. 2 hours later nobody had left. At the end of the month we presented at the Big Cyprus Seminole Reservation, many of the youth there find themselves in at risk situations this was an excellent time to reach them with a strong prevention message.

 

June saw Cathy and Steve traveling a lot. They were asked to be a part of the National Jaycees Conference, it was held in Dayton, Ohio. From Dayton they traveled to New York City, where Cathy had been chosen to be a delegate to the United Nation’s special session on AIDS and Steve was signed up to participate in the Civil Society Activities. Because of national security concerns the event was held under tight security and some of the Civil Society events were canceled. At the time this was very disturbing for many people who had traveled from around the world in hopes of being able to experience the session. In retrospect, given 9-11, those security activities were probably quite necessary. By the end of the 5 days there was a 10 billion dollar fund and we were part of the process. Not bad for a little non-profit with less than a $25,000 annual budget!

 

The rest of the summer we did several trainings at summer camps. We were asked to present at the National Seminole Health Conference, held in Marco Island. What a nice place to learn about health! Our audience ranged from young children to Tribal Elders and was very well received and a lot of fun to do. The end of July, Cathy was also asked to co-facilitate the state women’s conference in Tampa, where her team attempted to formulate new ideas for prevention messages for a variety of target audiences.

 

August…. back to school and back to work! We started the school year by helping three children with back to school clothes and school supplies. We were excited to help and hope to adopt several families next school year, so start collecting those supplies for next year. In the middle of August we sponsored a picnic in Lakeland for the community and saw close to 75 people in the rain! What a nice time of fellowship. The premiere of the Cathy Robinson story was in late August. It was a black tie event. The videos are available through Gulf Coast High School for a donation. The kids and staff worked so hard to capture what education means to people. The video contains a number of moving interviews all intertwined in Cathy’s educational program.

 

September began with a huge event for us; one week before the whole world changed we held our first day camp. We had 40 participants and 10 volunteers. We held the retreat at Steve’s family fish farm, in Callahan. The day was full of fishing, slip and sliding, 600 water balloons, horseshoes, hamburgers, hotdogs, salads, lots of sweets, lots of fellowship, networking and fun. (Pictures can be seen on the web site!) As we all know the world changed the next week. September 11 had an immediate affect on the AIDS community in Florida, as the National AIDS Conference was scheduled to be held in Miami at the end of that week! Of course that event had been planned for over a year with countless volunteer hours having been donated. We at Friends-Together want to acknowledge the hard work the Florida Host Committee had done for this event.

 

We all must go on and we did. October and November again is a heavy school time for us. We had a few special events though. November 10, ADFED (American Advertising Federation) held their state conference in Daytona. They announced that weekend that they had chosen Friends-Together as their service project for the year….hmmm what does that mean. Well, it means they are redoing all our literature and website; they are going to work hard with us to get prevention messages in both print media as well as TV and radio coverage. We are honored and excited about this. November continued with our second community picnic held at Lake Parker in Lakeland. Although our numbers were smaller we still had a great time.

 

Thanksgiving holidays were a joyful time. We at Friends-Together adopted several families and distributed food baskets to them. Thank you to all of you for being so generous and we really appreciate Evonne Williams and all her delivery help!

 

World AIDS week activities began November 26. Friends-Together participated in activities in Tallahassee, Bartow and Naples. As always this week is one of lots of travel, speaking, media and emotion. It is time to reflect on where we are and where we have to go.

 

December was a slow month for us, however we began plans for our biggest event ever! We booked a location for our first 3-day camp, it will be held the first weekend in August. We are certainly going to be calling on many of you for support and volunteer hours. This is what we have dreamed about doing since we started a year ago. It has taken a little longer than we would have liked but here we are! The three days will be dedicated to families infected and affected. We will be offering a TASK training and other activities for the adults and lots of fun and games for the kids.

 

Christmas holidays can be a sad time for families who are alone and often without resources to do anything special. This year we were able to help several children and their families with Christmas donations. We hope to do more next year.

 

As you can see this has been a challenging year. We have done all our activities on a shoestring budget and if not for many of you and your prayers and support we wouldn’t have been able to do all that we have done.