You Can Help New Yorkers Live Their Lives Well and Support Community Organizations Working to End HIV/AIDS
December 11 2017
Record Amount Donated This Year for Amida Care’s Live Your Life Wellness Program and the Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation
On December 5, supporters, sponsors, members, and staff gathered at Amida Care’s midtown office for the annual Live Your Life Celebration and Fundraiser. This year’s event raised over $175,000, which will fund Amida Care’s 2017 Live Your Life program and will also help to finance the Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation. Donations are accepted year-round, and no amount is too small. Your dollars make it possible for us to provide life-affirming wellness programs to our members and grants to organizations that do on-the-ground outreach in their communities to fight HIV/AIDS. Donate now!
On World AIDS Day, December 1, the Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation announced that it has awarded a total of $20,000 in new grants to several community-based organizations to support their innovative HIV prevention and outreach services. The 2017 grantees are Community Kinship Life, HEAT, Pride Center of Staten Island, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Translatina Network, and Trinity Place Shelter. Grant recipients are selected based on their outstanding work to address HIV/AIDS in LGBTQ communities throughout New York City.
Amida Care, the largest Medicaid Special Needs Health Plan (SNP) in New York State, provides comprehensive coverage and coordinated care to New Yorkers with chronic conditions including HIV, and people who are homeless or of transgender experience regardless of HIV status. The Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation was established as part of Amida Care’s privately funded Live Your Life wellness program and is focused on supporting work that advances Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Blueprint to End the AIDS Epidemic in New York State by 2020.
Amida Care’s Live Your Life wellness program hosts monthly events at community organizations throughout the five boroughs of New York City, where Amida Care members and their guests learn about ways to get and stay physically, mentally, and spiritually healthy. Events cover topics such as art therapy, dance, healthy cooking, yoga, meditation, aromatherapy, and more.
“Amida Care’s ‘Live Your Life’ program grew out of direct member feedback that health care needs to be about more than visiting the doctor and taking pills. These events are designed to meet the social, physical, and emotional needs of our members and build important life skills. Amida Care thanks our generous donors for helping to make this program possible,” said Doug Wirth, President and CEO of Amida Care.
“As we commemorate World AIDS Day, we’re proud to recognize and support organizations that help break down the barriers of stigma, discrimination, homophobia, transphobia, and rigidity around gender expression. These organizations also address socioeconomic challenges like poverty, unemployment, unstable housing, and food insecurity and provide access to HIV prevention methods like PrEP and PEP, HIV testing, and treatment,” said Doug Wirth, President and CEO of Amida Care. “We’ve made great progress in the fight to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, but we have much more work to do. We must reach the communities most severely affected, particularly transgender individuals and young MSM of color. Amida Care is proud to work in partnership with the Stonewall Community Foundation to support organizations that are providing essential community-based services to New York City’s LGBTQ and gender non-conforming communities.”
“Community-based organizations can help people live fulfilling, authentic lives, even in the face of vulnerability” said Jarrett Lucas, Executive Director of Stonewall Community Foundation. “Supporting groups and projects that invest in LGBTQ youth is particularly important to achieve an AIDS-free generation and a healthier and more equitable New York. We are honored to continue our work with Amida Care to provide this much-needed grassroots funding to our grantee partners.”
Amida Care’s goal is to continue to raise more money to increase the Fund and expand financial support for this critical work. To donate, please visit https://www.amidacareny.org/about-us/support-our-work/.