Chicago Tribune - November 7, 2004
William Hageman, Tribune staff reporter

On one wall is a David Romero mural, with tropical foliage, bananas and apples, and a pyramid of Campbell's soup cans. Standing over the doorway is a 4-foot-high statue of Michelangelo's David, spiffy in a rainbow-colored feather boa. Two small mirrored disco balls hang from the track lighting.

There's also a large sign:

LATEST AIDS STATISTIC:

0,000,000 CURED.

Welcome to Lori Cannon's world.

"We tried to make it so it doesn't look like a doctor's waiting room," she says. "Our clients spend too much time already down at public aid or doctors' offices or at a Social Security office, where you have some goddamned bureaucrat at the desk who you know is hoping the client dies so he doesn't have to wait on him. So what's wrong with coming to a program that has a little whimsy, a little comfort?"

Lori Cannon is behind the counter at GroceryLand--officially, the North Side Grocery Center--a food pantry run by the social service agency Vital Bridges for men and women with AIDS. She typically puts in 12- and 13-hour days at the pantry, where 200 clients can be served in a day.

"All roads lead to GroceryLand," she says. "We like to say we're the land of fruits and nuts."

Her business card, if she wasted her time with something as lame as a business card, would say she's the program coordinator. But there's not enough room on a business card to describe what she is or does for the gay community. Others are happy to tell you, though.

Ald. Tom Tunney (44th) calls her energetic, relentless and "a hero in the AIDS fight."

One GroceryLand volunteer and a longtime friend refers to Cannon as "the caretaker of the universe."

From her electric orange hair and long red fingernails to her blue spangled flip-flops and no-B.S. approach to her mission, Lori Cannon is a true character.

Cannon, 53, was born in Ravenswood and raised in West Rogers Park; she now lives in East Rogers Park with her mother and a brother who was partially disabled in a motorcycle accident in college. Another brother died at 14 after open-heart surgery.

"Tragedy visited the Cannon family early," she says. "I've been here before," a reference to the losses she has experienced more recently as part of the AIDS crisis.

Cannon attended Columbia University in New York and got a degree in cinematography and filmmaking. She has, at times, been a documentary filmmaker, a school bus driver, a restaurant hostess, a bookkeeper, a booking agent for blues bands.

Although she isn't gay, the gay community has long been a part of her life.

For better, for worse

"I've always had gay friends. Your friends are your friends. And you honor that friendship in health and sickness."

That sickness was AIDS, and it arrived in the early 1980s. A plague, she calls it. An epidemic that has cost her hundreds of close friends.

"I didn't understand what was happening. But I knew I didn't like it," Cannon says of the early years. "The horror, the heartbreak we experienced ... and no one was paying attention.

"When my contemporaries were dying in my arms, literally dying in my arms, my life was changed. I knew I couldn't count on the government. The Bush-Reagan years were a disgrace. An outrage. People were dying, ending up like shriveled-up, 90-year-old men. That's when I knew this was my mission. I knew I couldn't save lives, but I knew I could serve."

She became an AIDS activist as a member of ACT UP, the anti-AIDS organization that often engaged in civil disobedience to raise AIDS awareness. Then she co-founded Open Hand Chicago in 1988 to deliver meals to people with AIDS. But as medical advances helped AIDS patients live longer, there developed a need for a food pantry where they could pick up their own groceries to take home. GroceryLand was born in 1994.

A second pantry opened in 1995, and a third was added in 1996. In 2001, Open Hand became Vital Bridges, and there are now six food pantries serving close to 1,900 clients. But there's only one GroceryLand. Just as there's only one Lori Cannon.

"It goes way beyond food," said a client named Troy, who first met Cannon three years ago when he was helping a friend with case management. "When people are freaked out in regard to what's going on or being sick or ill or needing anything, Lori is there, to direct you to where you need to go. And [GroceryLand] is like a sanctuary for people to go."

In parenting mode

At times, Cannon can be a mom looking out for her brood, as when she worked the phones one recent day and found a location where she could send clients for flu shots. Other times, she's Mom giving someone a much-needed push.

George Martinez got one. The pantry volunteer has AIDS and suffered from liver disease. Cannon wouldn't let him give up.

"When he was a mope sitting at home," Cannon says, "I told him, 'You're not going anywhere, you're going to be around for a while. So you'd better figure out what you can do for the community's suffering.'"

"Yeah, she kind of kicked me in the butt," Martinez says. "I have to say I have a lot of my gumption because Lori plugged into my life. She inspired me."

Martinez underwent a liver transplant in May and has become a forceful advocate for HIV-to-HIV organ donation as well as an example to others.

Not all of Cannon's stories are so uplifting. There's the one about what it's like to ride in the Gay Pride Parade.

"When the Open Hand float would come up the street, we'd get the biggest cheers. And what I'd notice wasn't who was there in the crowd. What I'd notice is who wasn't there. I remember Bob Adams and his lawn chair, every year sitting in front of the Anshe Emet school. And then he wasn't there."

"Then I'd see the families applauding our volunteers, the people who fed their sons. And they'd mouth the words 'Thank you.'"

And other stories make you laugh. How she and a fellow activist, the late Daniel Sotomayor, used to crash Mayor Richard M. Daley's press conferences and unfurl banners.

"They'd say, 'Mayor Daley, tell the truth about AIDS,'" said Steven August Papa, a writer and creative strategist who has known Cannon since the late '80s. "Back then, when he'd see her coming, he would just roll his eyes. Like, 'Oh my God, here she comes.' However, now, all these years later, when he sees her he's very gracious.

"I personally feel that the things she and Danny and all those ACT UP members did educated people and gave [the AIDS crisis] a certain reality," Papa said. "I think her activism has created dynamic changes in the city of Chicago."

Tunney is proof. He says that part of the reason he got involved in politics was the efforts of Cannon and others.

A prod to action

"The government was not involved in the AIDS fight until we might have lost half the community," he said. "It was people like Lori Cannon that were there helping to orchestrate and to organize the gay community in their personal struggle in the fight against AIDS, because the government wasn't there."

As much as GroceryLand does for people, Cannon looks forward to the day it goes out of business. That'd be when AIDS is no more.

"I can't wait till we can shut down and hang up a shingle, 'It's been a pleasure to serve you, and now we're going to do something else.'

"Studs Terkel asked me once, 'What would your life have been like without AIDS?' And I said, 'Studs, I'll never know.'"

- - -

A reason to party

This is the beginning of a big week for the folks at GroceryLand.

The Chicago food pantry that serves men, women and children with HIV/AIDS is celebrating its 10th anniversary, and several events have been scheduled as the social service agency Vital Bridges honors volunteers, benefactors and staff.

A Chicago City Council proclamation will be presented at a press conference Tuesday at GroceryLand, on North Broadway Avenue. There's also a reception for volunteers and benefactors next week at the pantry, as well as a series of celebrations at each of Vital Bridges' six Chicago food pantries.

The recognition is well-deserved, said Steven August Papa, a writer and creative strategist who is planning the celebrations.

"The best group of volunteers you'll ever see," he said.

"I think there's a statistic in not-for-profits that says volunteers only last for, like, three years or something. That isn't the case for GroceryLand and Vital Bridges. You've got people who've been volunteering for 15 years for the organization and the full 10 years for the pantry."

Vital Bridges (formerly known as Open Hand Chicago) is a multiservice non-profit organization that helps those with HIV/AIDS, providing free food and counseling. The agency has provided 6 million meals, including home-delivered meals and grocery distribution, during its 15 years of service.

"There's never a waiting list," said Lori Cannon, program coordinator at GroceryLand, where she works with 65 to 70 volunteers, many of whom are also clients. "Not with meals, not with groceries. I'm so proud of that."

And it's the volunteers who make it happen and who will be honored during the next 10 days.

"These people, they're the best," Cannon said. "It's a privilege to work with them."

GroceryLand and Vital Bridges are always looking for more volunteers or donations of food from corporations or individuals. If you want to help, call 773-665-1000.

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