Being Alive; July 1997
Robert Dal Porto

The Spirit of Hope Award, now in its fifth year, is Being Alive's highest honor. It is bestowed upon those whose passion and commitment within our community have dramatically touched the lives of all of us living with hiv and aids. We recognize people who are on the front lines with us, assuring that competent healthcare, compassionate services and an improved quality of life are the standard for all of us.

Bishop Carl Bean's compassion for humanity and dedication to service truly is to be admired. An openly gay ordained Minister and founder of Unity Fellowship of Christ Church, he began caring for people with aids in the very early days of the epidemic.

Carl Bean was one of the first religious leaders to welcome people with aids into his flock, and actively and openly chastised black church leaders who preached that aids was a just retribution from God.

When there were no services available, his congregation rallied and provided food, clothing and shelter to aids patients released from hospitals directly into the streets. He started a program to serve those for whom there was little help and even less hope, African Americans living with aids. His efforts led to the formation of Minority AIDS Project in 1985. He also helped to create the National Minority AIDS Council. Bishop Carl Bean truly makes "Christ" the operative word in Christian and our entire aids Community has been dramatically touched by his love.

Jacques Chambers, Manager of the Benefits Program at AIDS Project Los Angeles, is steadfast in his commitment to making sure that his knowledge of the health insurance industry directly helps people living with hiv and aids. Access to healthcare (a.k.a. insurance coverage) in our aids community is often what separates the `haves' from the `have nots'. Jacques left a lucrative insurance business because he had lost faith in his life's work. He saw that the product he was selling was actually working against people with hiv disease rather than for them. And so in 1990, Jacques began his work at APLA.

Since that time, Jacques has been directly interfacing with insurance companies and providers advocating on our behalf. Jacques was a consultant to the Department of Insurance and wrote a report that was the basis for consumer-oriented insurance legislation, which was later successfully enacted into law. Jacques was instrumental in the development of People With Kaiser and was a founding member of People with PacifiCare, two consumer advocacy groups within Being Alive.

Meeting on a one-on-one basis with 150 to 200 people per month who need help with their own particular insurance situation is Jacques' greatest source of pride, for that is where he can see the difference he truly makes in people's lives.

Mary Nalick, Deputy Director of Programs at the Jeffrey Goodman Special Care Clinic, is, quite simply, remarkable. She is renowned in our community for having this incredible wealth of energyenergy which she directs at nothing short of eradicating hiv disease from every corner of this earth. Her car license plate reads "KO AIDS" and her e-mail address is "NoMoAIDS."

Since 1989, Mary's entire professional life and the major part of her personal life have been devoted to individuals living with hiv and aids. She is a proud member of ACT-UP/LA and has been arrested on several occasions over the years, demonstrating to get an aids ward established at LAC-USC Hospital, and picketing in Washington DC to get more aids funding. This is only one side of Mary Nalick, and in no way defines her. She is a naturally pleasant, bright, articulate, persistent, and beloved administrator who served as the Director of the City of Angels Hospice, AIDS Service Center, Hospice Services at AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and the Chris Bownlie Hospice. In additon to her work at the Jeffrey Goodman Clinic, Mary is a lawyer, a Clinical Social Worker and most recently, a Registered Nurse. This June will mark Mary's third consecutive AIDS Ride in which she bicycles from San Francisco to Los Angeles. As you can see, Mary is non-stop.

The Staff of 5P21 is composed of dedicated and caring individuals united in one common mission: to provide compassionate and skillful care to all people living with hiv and aids. As one of the first comprehensive hiv clinics in the country, the 5P21 Clinic at the Los Angeles County/USC Medical Center has earned its place as a leader in hiv care and research. This facility has been providing comprehensive, multidisciplinary hiv/aids health services since 1985 to all Angelenos needing medical care. At 5P21, a high standard of quality healthcare is given in combination with respect for the individual served.

Each of the over eighty 5P21 staff members chose to work in the clinic with its exclusively hiv/aids population. This team (the doctors, technicians, nurses, administrators, clerks, secretaries, custodians, pharmacists, social workers, and everyone else at the clinic) personally impacts the over 200 people who enter their doors on a daily basis.

Together, they have taken a large bureaucracy, a system all too often with a life of its own, and turned it into an environment where people feel cared for and safe, a place of hope. And it is because of this humanity, this love with which they serve our brothers and sisters living with hiv and aids, that Being Alive is honored to recognize the truly exceptional Staff of 5P21 with this year's Spirit of Hope Award.

Sean O'Brien Strub is a generator, he makes things happen! Sean is an aids activist, an entrepreneur, an author, a producer, as well as the founder and Executive Editor of POZ Magazine.

As a gay man who has been living with hiv his entire adult life, Sean is adamant that he is not living with a death sentence. "I'm doing more things", he affirms, "and I'm more excited by life than I've ever been." In 1984, Sean's direct marketing firm, Strubco, Inc., was the first to raise funds to fight aids through direct mail and telemarketing services, raising more than $20 million over ten years. In 1987, Sean became active in ACT UP/New York and used his business savvy to assist the organization's fundraising committee.

Sean is probably best known in our aids community for conceiving and giving birth to POZ Magazine, a national magazine for those who are hiv infected and affected. For tens of thousands across this nation, POZ is essential. It provides not only the facts, but also the perspectives of others who are living with hiv/aids. POZ's greatest impact may be that it reaches people who don't live within the larger aids service meccas of this country, people who have little or no access to accurate information on hiv.

Sean uses POZ to educate, to arouse discussions and to speak up on issues which far too many forget: politics, needle exchange, women with hiv, healthcare for the poor and the disenfranchised, the inhumane cost of drugs and prisoners' rights (or lack thereof). Sean Strub's personal response to aids has made him a hero to us at Being Alive, for he symbolizes the true essence of our Spirit of Hope.

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