Financial Support for Grassroots AIDS Work 1999

OrchidMania provides financial support to AIDS programs which receive little or no taxpayer support and must rely primarily on individual donations. Since so many of our plant donations come from outside the United States some of our financial support goes to programs in Asia and Latin America. Groups are eligible to receive OrchidMania funding for a maximum of three years.

In 1999 the following groups received financial support from OrchidMania's "World's Largest Orchid Garage Sale."

BAHSES-Bay Area HIV Support Education Services
Provides HIV/STD Education and Prevention, one-on-one counseling, information and referral services, a "Wellness Program," technical assistance, training and a "Community Collaboration and Partnership" in Alameda, Solano, Sonoma, San Francisco and Santa Clara, California Counties.

GAEMN
Volunteers of Gente parauna Amor Nuevo (People for a New Love) in Santiago, Chile, provide housing, food, clothing, transportation, hospice care, legal and labor assistance, and medical needs to approximately 120 clients per month.

Indradevi Association
Indradevi provides HIV/AIDS education and prevention outreach through workshop-based training courses. This training specifically targets police and military personnel and their families who live and work in neighborhoods with bars, restaurants, night clubs and commercial sex workers. Indradevi serves Kandal Province, which includes eleven districts in the Cambodia.

MITRA Indonesia
MITRA started as a hot line service in 1993 and has expanded its activities include anonymous HIV testing, pre- and post-test counseling, counselor training programs, community outreach work, public information and awareness campaigns and advocacy. The group serves Jakarta as well as other areas in Indonesia.

N.E.E.D.
Volunteers provide free syringe exchange, supplies, and disposal, lube and condoms, and educational materials. NEED provides approximately 200,000 syringes toover 1000 people each year in Berkeley and Oakland, California.

Nguyen Friendship Society
The Nguyen Friendship Society (NFS) is the first AIDS/HIV prevention program in Viet Nam for gay and bisexual men. This group of about 50 volunteers does street outreach, condom distribution, needle exchange, and peer counseling in Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon). This effort is still considered underground and controversial. OrchidMania was the first to recognize and support this group's efforts.

Camp Sunburst
Camp Sunburst operates free summer camps in the California Sierra Nevada for children with AIDS and their families. When children get AIDS they are quickly deprived of their childhood. Families are stressed emotionally, economically, and socially. Sunburst Project camps allow kids with HIV to take a vacation from AIDS for a week. Recreational opportunities and volunteer medical staff take pressure off kids and families, and allow them to regroup and enjoy each other -- sometimes for the last time.

Support the Children Foundation
Support the Children Foundation has set up four homes for orphaned or abandoned children infected with HIV. The group provides love and care to these unfortunate children in a family type setting. They also teach HIV infected parents how to care for their infected children in order to avoid the possibility that they will be abandoned. The organization serves Chiang Mai in Northern Thailand.