The Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation Announces 2019 Grant Awards for HIV/AIDS Initiatives at NYC Community Organizations
New York, NY (December 10, 2019) - The Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation announced today that it has awarded a total of $30,000 in grant funding for innovative HIV prevention and services to several community-based organizations to help them continue their important work in the communities they serve. The 2019 grantees are Colectivo Intercultural TRANSgrediendo (CIT), Out My Closet (OMC), Pride Center of Staten Island, Sylvia Rivera Law Project, Translatinx Network, and Trinity Place Shelter. Grant recipients will receive $5,000 each and are selected based on their outstanding work to address HIV/AIDS in LGBTQ communities throughout New York City.
Amida Care, the largest Medicaid Special Needs Health Plan in New York, serves 8,000 members living with or at elevated risk for HIV. The Amida Care Fund at Stonewall Community Foundation was established as part of Amida Care’s privately funded Live Your Life wellness program and is focused on supporting work that advances Governor Andrew Cuomo’s Blueprint to End the HIV/AIDS Epidemic in New York State by 2020.
The Fund supports HIV education, prevention, intervention, and treatment programs that engage New Yorkers who are disproportionately impacted by HIV—such as young gay and bisexual men of color and people of transgender experience—and those who are HIV-positive but not virally suppressed or receiving necessary access to care.
“Amida Care is proud to work in partnership with the Stonewall Community Foundation to recognize and support organizations that are helping break down barriers to care. These organizations do invaluable on-the-ground work to address challenges that affect community health, such as poverty, unemployment, unstable housing, and food insecurity, while providing access to HIV prevention methods like PrEP, HIV testing, and treatment. We can’t end the HIV epidemic in New York without the essential community-based health services that these organizations provide,” said Doug Wirth, president and CEO of Amida Care. “Though we have made great strides in the fight to end the HIV/AIDS epidemic, there is much more to be done. We must expand our reach in communities most heavily impacted by HIV, particularly in black, Latinx, and LGBTQ communities...