Washington Blade - May 10, 2002
Jennifer J. Smith

The announcement that the Bay Area chapter will shutter its doors May 31 comes on the heels of six other NAMES Project chapters closing in the past three months: Washington, D.C., Central Ohio; Houston; Rhode Island; Southeastern Massachusetts; and Syracuse, N.Y.

But officials with the NAMES Project Foundation, based in Atlanta, said the organization is considering opening a smaller office to have some presence in San Francisco, the city where the symbol of the fights against AIDS was started.

"In San Francisco there was too much work to do and too few people to do it," said Cleve Jones, the NAMES Project founder. "It's sad, but it's also predictable. There are fewer people dying -- thank God -- but that means there is less focus on a disease that is still ravaging the globe. We have fewer volunteers, fewer people focused on the quilt. We have to change with the times."

Several chapter presidents have blamed an eroding volunteer and donor base as contributing factors to the closings, but other chapter officials said a new chapter agreement sent out by the national office in Atlanta was the catalyst to closing their doors.

"The agreement was the 'straw on the camel's back,'" San Francisco board member Delores Thompson said in an interview with the Bay Area Reporter last week. Bay Area chapter employees did not return calls for comment this week.

The new chapter agreement prohibited the chapters from soliciting funds by direct mail, required them to coordinate fund-raising activities from national corporations with the national office, and increased fees to use quilt panels.

The NAMES Project Foundation, the umbrella organization that coordinates volunteers, displays and donors for the AIDS Memorial Quilt, moved its main office from San Francisco to Atlanta a year ago in a controversial attempt to stabilize the company after a series of financial setbacks.

D.C. display prompted crisis

Following a national display in 1995 of the quilt on the Mall in Washington, D.C., the foundation went through a "serious financial crisis," when it "took on too many employees and grew too quickly," Jones said.

At its peak, the organization had 50 employees but now has less than 10, according to managing director Julie Rhoad.

But the foundation is "back to being fiscally healthy, and in a situation to look forward for the first time in years, not just react," she said. The organization has eliminated its debt, has a current annual operating budget of $1.9 million and is working on a five-year plan for its operations, Rhoad said.

"I'm sorry to see that [the San Francisco office] needed to close. They were an exhausted group of people, and we did everything we could to help them," Rhoad said.

The foundation is in discussions to open "either a workshop, or a visitor's center" in San Francisco to replace the chapter office that is closing, she said.

The national office is "dedicated to having a presence in San Francisco. It's a long-term and a short-term goal," Rhoad said.

Two personal moves may be in the works for NAMES employees. Founder Cleve Jones, now residing in southern California, may move to Atlanta as early as this fall.

"I'm just there all the time now, and I love it. It's a great city," he said.

"I'm seriously considering moving there, perhaps right after the next board meeting in August."

FOR MORE INFO NAMES Project Foundation P.O. Box 5552 Atlanta, GA 31107 404-688-5500 www.aidsquilt.org

Gert McMullen, the quilt's caretaker and the organizations' first volunteer, may return to San Francisco.

"It's home for her. She moved out here with us and is dedicated to staying as long as we need her, but we have always been dedicated to getting her back there, so she's going back for a couple weeks this summer, then we'll solidify plans to open up an office there with Gert," Rhoad said.

The quilt currently consists of more than 46,000 6-foot by 3-foot panels -- roughly the size of a human coffin -- dedicated to people who died of the disease. Portions are displayed in about 3,000 venues annually.

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