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CAP gives sense of family and support

By Gary Massaro, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Published November 8, 2008 at midnight

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Michael, who has AIDS, cooks dinner at his apartment provided by the Colorado AIDS Project. He is unemployed due to his illness and was homeless for a while. “It looks like there’s a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said now that he has a place of his own.

Photo by Preston Gannaway © The Rocky

Michael, who has AIDS, cooks dinner at his apartment provided by the Colorado AIDS Project. He is unemployed due to his illness and was homeless for a while. “It looks like there’s a little bit of light at the end of the tunnel,” he said now that he has a place of his own.

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The walk-in coolers, the freezers filled with meat and fish, vegetables and fruit represent hope for the people who come to the food bank of the Colorado AIDS Project.

“They often don’t have homes. They don’t have families. They don’t have jobs,” said Mike Lee, marketing director. “Life is a basic struggle. On top of that, they’re HIV positive.”

Nathan Johnson was out of work, out of a home, almost out of hope when he walked in to CAP last year.

“I didn’t have any furniture. I didn’t have a job. I didn’t have much money. I only had some clothes,” said Johnson, 35, of Denver. “We are not homeless people getting HIV. We are people that grew up in your neighborhood and went to school with you or your children and have fallen into desperate times due to depression and fear.”

He got help to buy medicine to keep his illness in check. He found a place to live. And he signed up for the food bank, which serves people making $13,000 a year or less.

“It saved me much worry about where my next meal is going to come from,” he said.

Diane Cable is CAP’s food bank coordinator. “Food is a big element,” she said. “People with Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome need nutritional food. That’s why we spend $140,000 a year to buy food.”

People with HIV/AIDS have poor immune systems. Sometimes, processed food can trigger reactions. So organic foods are in big demand.

And people with HIV/AIDS need more protein in their diet. In the past, someone with AIDS would waste away, the body feeding on itself to get protein — first the fat, then the muscle.

There was a major breakthrough in 1997 with anti-retroviral medicines to reduce the amount of virus in a person’s body.

“Before, we helped people die with dignity,” Lee said. “Overnight, with ARM, it went from a death sentence to a return to health. It became a chronic disease. But it didn’t change the stigma.”

Johnson has lived with it.

“You feel very separated from people,” he said. “The fear and anxiety that it causes is overabundant and smothering.”

His family isn’t much help, he said.

“If I use a hand towel in the bathroom, they’re afraid the grandkids will get HIV from me,” he said. “They’re still living with misconceptions and fear. I get more sense of family and support from Colorado AIDS Project.”

The food bank is a big part of that support. Cable uses donations to buy from Food Bank of the Rockies or direct from big corporations like Kuner’s.

She also gathers donations from places like Whole Foods or Starbucks.

The food bank provides one-third of the calories people need for a week.

Cable has started giving more frozen fish, less hamburger.

She gets fresh vegetables and fruit when she can. She also asks clients to come back and tell her how they prepared something so she can pass on tips to others.

Tim Schuetz has been development director of CAP for nine months. Already, the newcomer has seen things he likes.

“The food bank provides a valuable tool,” he said. “We provide great nutritional resources to help people manage the disease.”

Cable sees the change in the clients. They don’t just come in, collect their food and leave. They visit. They share good medical news.

“You see the different stages — anger, depression, wherever they are in life,” she said. “Then you see them after they have a place to live and are eating better.

For some, after months or years of coming in here, it’s almost like a family feeling.”

CAP serves about 1,800 people in metropolitan Denver. Last year, the food bank gave out 98,000 meals.

The food bank staff can’t do it alone. Volunteers come in to help. There’s a crew from Laradon Hall, a school for the developmentally disabled, that pitches in.

They take care of the food and each other, sorting and stocking the shelves.

“We give people the tools they need to get their lives back on track,” said Mike Lee, the marketing director. “When you see people take back control of their lives, they have hope. It’s really not hope. It’s success.”

Colorado AIDS Project

* Purpose: Prevent HIV infection and improve the quality of life of those affected by HIV and AIDS.

* Year founded: 1983

* People helped: 1,800

* Staff: 42

* Volunteers: 163

* Budget: $4.2 million in 2007

* Web site: coloradoaidsproject.org

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com