PRNewswire - November 20, 2003

Four Florida HIV/AIDS organizations received initial grants of nearly $200,000 from the Pfizer Foundation Southern HIV/AIDS Prevention Initiative.

The grants are part of the $3 million, three-year Initiative to fund highly targeted prevention programs to underserved populations in Florida, Alabama, Georgia, Louisiana, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina, Tennessee, and Texas.

Grants awarded during this funding cycle totaled more than $1 million with ongoing technical assistance from the Foundation.

Although African Americans and Latinos account for just 34% of the population in Florida, they made up 70% of new AIDS cases reported between July of 2001 and June of 2002. At the end of 2001, there were an estimated 38,742 people living with AIDS in Florida, third most in the nation.

"By partnering with organizations in small towns and big cities across the South, we hope to help slow the increasing incidence of HIV/AIDS," said Caroline Roan, secretary of the Pfizer Foundation. "We know that tackling HIV/AIDS-the most catastrophic health challenge of our time-demands that we work and partner together as governments and communities, and as corporations and foundations," Roan added.

"Those of us on the front line of the AIDS epidemic know the toll that HIV/AIDS has taken on Miami and across Florida," said Barbara Gaynor, founder and director of Mother's Voices, a prevention program in Miami emphasizing parent-child communication. "I'm delighted to have the support of the Pfizer Foundation behind the work that we are doing," said Gaynor, "but I am also hopeful that the Initiative will focus needed national attention on the crisis not only here, but across the South."

The Foundation's new grantees in Florida are operating an array of creative programs taking prevention and education messages to the community. Grants were awarded to the following organizations:

* Mother's Voices ($50,000 - Miami, FL): This parent-child education program offers Parents Educating Parents workshops and Raising Healthy Kids and Heart 2 Heart seminars.

* The Jacksonville Area Sexual Minority Youth Network ($44,836 - Jacksonville, FL): The Network will expand its pilot program, What Do You Know?

* Rural Women's Health Project ($49,834 - Gainesville, FL): The Project will train 40 youth as peer educators as part of Project Claridad/Project Clarity, an HIV educational and empowerment project for rural immigrant, Spanish-speaking farm worker youth.

* Sembrando Flores ($50,000 - Homestead, FL): The organization is using a non-denominational, interfaith, abstinence-based prevention approach to train youth from at least four church congregations as peer educators.

"I am very happy that the Pfizer Foundation is helping these organizations, who in turn, play a critical role in caring for those in our community who are sick and less fortunate," said Congresswoman Ileana Ros- Lehtinen (R-18th). "These grants will provide the needed funds so that these groups can continue their charitable labor. When this happens, our entire community wins."

Since 2001, 46 percent of the estimated new HIV/AIDS cases in the U.S. have been reported in the South. While the southern region accounts for little more than one-third of the total population, it is where 40 percent of the people estimated to be living with the AIDS call home.

The Pfizer Foundation, established by Pfizer Inc, has worked for a half a century, in partnership with community-based organizations to ensure access to quality healthcare for those individuals most in need.

SOURCE The Pfizer Foundation

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