John Hilgeman 0:00 Good morning. This is John Hilgeman for Lambda Reports. This is a program by and for the lesbian and gay community in the St. Louis area. And our guest this morning is Mary Hizer, the new executive director of St. Louis Effort for AIDS, Mary, you just kind of took over St. Louis effort for AIDS just a couple months ago. Is that right? Mary Hizer 0:23 Yeah, I started April 15, an auspicious day. John Hilgeman 0:26 Great tax day. Mary Hizer 0:28 You got it. I'll always remember. John Hilgeman 0:31 And what is St. Louis effort for AIDS? Mary Hizer 0:37 Ah, St Louis effort for AIDS was formed in 1985 by 12 gay men who got together and knew that they had to do something for their brothers who were dying. There were a lot of people being affected by AIDS, and no one in St. Louis who was really doing anything for them. So these guys got together and formed St. Louis effort for AIDS, and gave direction. Their initial response was to provide money for those people with AIDS and see if there was some, some way they could, besides giving financial assistance, give other supports to those folks. So that's how it started. John Hilgeman 1:21 And this was, I guess, when the AIDS epidemic in St. Louis was still fairly young or not too many people hit? Mary Hizer 1:30 Right. The incidents had had hit, but people weren't really affect. Well, they were affected. The effects weren't being felt as strongly as they were until 1985 so that's when it's that's when we got going. John Hilgeman 1:49 And what brought you to St. Louis effort for AIDS? Mary Hizer 1:53 Well, this is actually a funny story. I understand there was a nationwide search conducted, there were advertisements placed in California and Chicago and other parts of the country. And we were talking at the office last week, I guess, and they said, Well, how did you hear about it? And I said, Well, actually, I heard about it from my hairdresser, because my hair said, you know, St. Louis effort, phrase is looking for an executive director. So that's how I heard about the job. So much for nice and white shirt (?) John Hilgeman 2:28 What kind of work had you done prior to St. Louis Effort for AIDS? Mary Hizer 2:33 Actually, I have a nonprofit background. I started many years ago, fresh out of college with the Girl Scouts. And I worked in Indiana for three years, and then I moved out to Colorado, and worked out there for five years, and figured out that if I wanted to stay in nonprofit work, I ought to know something more about business and and how nonprofits really, really work. And so I came back to St. Louis, which is where I was raised, went to school at SIU, got my master's degree in business, and learned about the for-profit world. It was a real eye opening experience. From there, I went to Lakeside Center for Boys, which is a County facility, county government, and it's where those kids coming through the judicial system who weren't, um, weren't to the point of being sent to prison, but they needed some help, and they needed some supervised help. So I was there for three years, the director of administration and supervised maintenance and food services and the office operations, and learned about County government. It was good. And then Harriet Woods ran for office and got hooked up with that operation. Worked for a year there, and after Harriet lost there, I was without a job, and a friend of mine who owns a wholesale distributor of janitorial products, said, come, come work with us for a while, you know, just just until you find something else. And the more I was there, I thought, you know, maybe I ought to explore the for-profit world a little bit more. So I stayed there, and actually was there for four years, and then through that four years, decided that my heart was at the nonprofit level. That's where I wanted to be. So this was good timing. EFA needed a new director, and I wanted to get back into nonprofit work, and EFA was a good, good place to be. John Hilgeman 4:40 What is the situation in EFA right now? I know that the organization did provide a lot of funding at one point when there were a lot fewer people who needed the services, the funding services, and now there's all kinds of people who are coming down with AIDS. And I mean, I. Yeah, there's not all kinds of government funding for EFA. Mary Hizer 5:02 No, there really isn't. There is some government funding becoming available through the Ryan White Care Act, but that's not nearly enough to take care of all those affected. EFA has a temporary assistance program so that we're still able to provide some financial help. Unfortunately, because of the greater numbers there, that help is reduced somewhat. The programs were able to offer his assistance with utilities, some housing. We work closely with Doorways, with Food Outreach, some transportation and food vouchers. So there are some things that we can still do and provide monies for, but not nearly what we'd like. Unfortunately. And you're having fundraisers. Is that right? Oh, we have fundraisers all the time, unfortunately. There are, well, this weekend coming up is Into the Woods. Cause for Applause is putting on a benefit for us, and that'll be at Fontbonne. Starts Wednesday night, so it's Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday. There's a matinee and an evening performance. That ought be great fun. We had had some performers at our last general meeting. Did little little act for us, and it's gonna be a fun play. What else do we do there was, there's a direct mailing going out. We're venturing into we've done some direct mailing where we're embarking on a new campaign this year, trying our hand, trying to reach out to larger community to get some funding. We always need to broaden that base of support. The more people helping, the more we can do. That's all there is to it. And there are other things in the works that we're not ready to spill the beans about yet. Okay, okay, John Hilgeman 7:07 Okay, no, no extra previews or anything, I guess not. Mary Hizer 7:11 No, Not yet, not yet. John Hilgeman 7:13 What about the Sharing Center? The Sharing Center is that Speaker 1 7:15 The Sharing Center is alive and well. That's one of the support groups that is offered over at the Sharing Center, Alive and Well. There are other support groups that meet there. It's, um, it's a nice place just to be able to offer that for anyone who's HIV positive, or has, you know, full blown AIDS can come in, find a place to relax, to meet friends, to, … Friday nights we have social gatherings, and the folks plan the programs themselves. So it could vary from just watching movies to playing cards to, I don't know if they have any dances over there yet, maybe something to look at. I don't know we've been talking about maybe a coffee house type of thing in the fall, just batting that around. We offer support groups over there. Mary Hizer 7:18 And this is in the same building as St. Louis Effort for AIDS. Right, same building, just across the hall, and has a separate entrance so that programs can be offered in the evenings and on weekends. John Hilgeman 8:24 And there's a kitchen, a library, a lounge, big meeting room, Mary Hizer 8:28 Smoking, non-smoking, and computer hookup. That's a nice addition. It's on a modem, so that there's access to some databases. Particularly, I think there are two or three databases available on AIDS research, medications that are being tried, and different things like that, so anyone can come in and sit down and be hooked up via modem to some of the most current information available. It's a nice, nice resource available. John Hilgeman 9:02 That sounds good. And I've been to a couple parties there. Mary Hizer 9:05 Great. Yeah, I missed that one John Hilgeman 9:09 Thanksgiving, something a couple parties there. That's what other things as St Louis Effort for AIDS do? Mary Hizer 9:17 Good question. We have, there're basically two, I don't want to say branches, but two focuses to the mission of EFA, and that is, one is to provide direct client assistance, and the other is education. So under direct client services, we have case management, and volunteers are our case managers and work directly with the client. Sounds so clinical, doesn't it? Those are the folks who have been diagnosed and have an AIDS diagnosis, can then become clients of EFA, the case worker works with that person to provide advocacy and information and referrals. The referrals are both for internal and external resources, so that if the person needs help with an apartment or housing, we can contact Doorways and work directly with them to get something set up or meals, or maybe working with Social Security, or internal things like the Buddy Program. Buddy Program is another program we have available again for volunteers to hook up with AIDS clients, and that's more more of a social program, rather than the clinical type thing, so that you just hook up and have somebody you can call somebody to connect you with the rest of the world and what's going on, or, you know, just, just someone to be there to listen to you. You know, that's a nice, nice program needed. What else, the temporary assistance that's also under client services. Then on the education arm, we have our publication, which is front line. It comes out monthly subscriptions available. The Hotline, and that is available from 9am to 9pm Monday through Friday and 6pm to 9pm on Saturdays, fully staffed by volunteers. Again, we have two lines available. We also have hook up for hearing impaired. So that's that's another service that's available, let's see. And then we also do some outreach programs. We have one person on staff, Mike Stancil, who does gay and lesbian outreach and minority outreach. Rocky Patterson reaches into the African American community. We're also looking into the Hispanic community and Asian community. Those are not as pronounced and evident in St. Louis sometimes, but there are definitely populations to be reached here. And then we have volunteer services, and we always need volunteers. That's what the agency's for. People can volunteer to work on any of those programs in the case management, Buddy Program, board, board committees. I have my notes here. The front line. You know, fundraisers. Each fundraiser that's organized is like, almost like a mini organization. You have to set up somebody who to manage the fundraiser, somebody do publicity, somebody do the leg work, somebody go out and find advertisers if we're going to do any kind of a program. So it's, you know, a focused committee. So we kind of an intense operation, and then the outreach efforts always need people to stuff those survival, John Hilgeman 13:18 survival kits, Mary Hizer 13:19 yeah, the survival kit and PR publicity and just researching topics so volunteer opportunities about John Hilgeman 13:32 And what are the survival kits? Mary Hizer 13:34 Survival Kits are used in our outreach efforts, and they contain information on safe sex, probably two condoms. Some contain dental dams. It depends on where the where the kits are being handed down. And also we're including information on IV drug users, and how to clean needles and and sanitize those so that there's less risk involved if sharing of needles goes on. So survival kits. John Hilgeman 14:16 How many clients does S. Louis Effort for AIDS have right now? Mary Hizer 14:22 We have approximately 150 at this point. There are some clients who are served by both North Side AIDS outreach and bureau of AIDS prevention. And then we have some So and there's, there's an integrated approach, so that if one of those people is our clients, but also getting services from Northside, then, yeah, we don't just cut each other off. There's, there's some nice cooperative ventures going on. John Hilgeman 14:55 What kind of ventures do you have with North Side? Mary Hizer 14:58 Um, information. Again, sharing resources, so that if North Side needs some help finding something, or we need help from them finding something, North Side reaches primarily the African American community in North North St. Louis City and County. So there are communities that we can get into, and there are communities they can get into, and some we can overlap and and some we can't, some just again, whatever the client needs. You know, the best way to get the services to the client. John Hilgeman 15:39 This is John Hilgeman with Mary Hizer on Lambda Reports. We're on KRJY, and we're talking about St. Louis Effort for AIDS. What? What are some of the other events that you have planned? Because I'm not exactly sure just when this is going to be airing, and so in case it would air the event. Mary Hizer 16:04 Yeah, let me think, John, we've got, of course, I didn't write out a schedule of anything coming up other than this next month or so. John Hilgeman 16:16 Well, it wouldn't be a good quiz if you Mary Hizer 16:19 Thanks. Now, not necessarily fundraising, but we are working with the Quilts, the NAMES Project, and looking forward to that. And that's in October, 18 and 20th. I'm really looking forward to that. I haven't had the opportunity to see the Quilt, so we're working on that. Lot of outreach events going on this summer, just getting out into the community and finding folks where they are on the weekends and play time and relaxation time, and getting out those survival kits. Don't really have any fundraisers formed for this summer. Summer is not a real good time to raise funds. People are off plane. Some are spending their own money. John Hilgeman 17:13 I guess EFA will be at the Pride Fest this year. Mary Hizer 17:16 We'll be there. Not doing any fundraising. We're there in a educational setting. This time, we want to get the word out to folks and just let them know who we are and where you can find us. And if they're interested in doing any volunteering, we'll have information there. We'll have safe sex information set up and a display some great posters, not for sale, unfortunately, but just again, informational, educational. John Hilgeman 17:48 Now there's a parenting fair that's held every year by Kids in the Middle. I guess EFA is going to have a booth again this year Mary Hizer 17:56 We are? John Hilgeman 17:57 When is that going to be? Mary Hizer 17:59 Got me, John I don't know. There have been so many things to to learn just this past month and a half. But you know, and I rely on my staff a whole lot. They're they're real, real good folks, very committed to doing their jobs and getting the word out and helping our clients and our volunteers. So I went through basic volunteer training last weekend. Yeah, it was just last weekend. That's a real good source of information, not only for volunteering for EFA, but just, you know how AIDS is spread. You know how the little virus attacks the cells, and, you know, I've been doing a lot of clinical reading, but until John Thompson brought it down to, you know, pictures and drawings, it made a lot more sense when John explained it. John Hilgeman 18:57 And all the volunteers go through these training programs, right? Mary Hizer 19:00 Yeah, anyone who's going to be involved with direct client services, we'd like them to go through the basic training. And we've also got the hotline training and Buddy training so that you aren't caught unawares. You've got some preparation, you've got somebody sitting there with you. When you're sitting down for the first time at the Hotline, it's like, don't call today. I'm new. But you know, we don't, we don't just throw people to the wolves. You know that would, wouldn't be any kind of a service to those people calling into the Hotline, nor to our volunteers for the first couple of times. So it's a it's a good learning process, so that you sit in for a time or two and listen, and, you know, watch an experienced Hotline volunteer answer those questions and and do the referrals. Because we get, we get all kinds of calls, people who are scared, to people who just want some information, to some, we also get some crank calls. And. And how to deal with them. Not too many crank calls. We have an answering machine on the Hotline at night, after hours, and we'll get a couple of calls from teenagers who are trying to be cute. I'm glad they're on the answering machine. Can't talk back to him and tell him what you'd like to. But it's a good process, good learning process, and the more, the more times you hear the information, the more times you have to ingrain to absorb it until it's, yeah, yeah. I know this information now i I'm ready to sit by myself. And so it's, it's a good setup. And then the buddy training too. Again, we don't, we don't train volunteers, and then just throw them out and say, you know, go be a buddy. There's a support system afterwards, so that, you know, every month there's there's a meeting for for the buddies, there's also the experienced buddies who who are available to to the new guys or gals, and they're available, so that if you have a question about what you should be doing for your buddy, there's someone you can call. Or you can come to a support group and and just just hash around what's what's happening, how you're feeling and how you're going to handle something, and what happens when, when death is getting close. And you know, then we've got some other support groups set up to help Buddies, along with that, along with families and friends, lovers, bereavement groups, it's a rough time for everyone, so we're trying to make ourselves available to everyone. There's no way we can force people to come in and use our services, but at least we want it to be available so that when they're ready, they can come in. John Hilgeman 22:08 Some people, I kind of get the impression, have the feeling that Effort for AIDS is just a gay organization, and maybe you could kind of set the record straight on that. Mary Hizer 22:18 I think when the organization first started, yeah, it was very much identified as gay organization. It was organized by gay men for their friends. But as the disease is spreading, we know that there are other communities being affected. And yes, Effort for AIDS will always have the focus of serving gays, because at this point, that's the largest population being affected. But women of childbearing age are being affected. More children are being born with AIDS as a result of their mothers being infected. IV drug users are spreading the disease. So there are some other communities we need to meet and hopefully make ourselves available to them too. It's going to be a big challenge, because we know that the general population is not real eager to embrace the gay community, and it's going to take some real talking and educating on our part, as well as theirs. John Hilgeman 23:26 What's really struck me about the people that I've met, you know, the gay men and lesbians that I've met who are involved in St. Louis Effort for AIDS, and of course, there's a lot of straight people involved too, but so many are professionals. Mary Hizer 23:44 Oh yeah. John Hilgeman 23:44 Medical professionals, you know, social service educators, right So already, whether straight people like it or not, you know, they're being assisted in many ways by members of the lesbian and gay community, because people don't just live in one area of the world. Mary Hizer 24:06 There aren't the pink triangles on heads saying I'm a lesbian or I'm a gay man. People don't realize who they're working with, and thank God, in a lot of cases, it just doesn't enter into the discussion. It's, you know, it's not a necessary thing to proclaim your your sexual preference, to do your job. You know, it doesn't have any bearing that. You know, I'm a lesbian or gay man, this is the job, and I'm good at my job. So I think what's happening is the straight community is finding out that's true. It doesn't matter. We keep our fingers crossed, we'll still have that homophobia to deal with. John Hilgeman 24:54 I think some members of the straight community, too are becoming aware of the fact that, you know, when they see gay relationships, see like, especially where one of the partners has AIDS, or maybe even both of the partners have AIDS in the way they stick with each other and support each other. Mary Hizer 25:15 Don't just cut them off and say, Sorry. John Hilgeman 25:18 That's right, that this, this indicates that gay relationships Mary Hizer 25:23 are valid, John Hilgeman 25:24 Yes, and every bit as strong and loving is any straight relationship too. Mary Hizer 25:28 And that's been good to help spread the word on, yeah, a relationship is a relationship, and it takes work, no matter who you're living with, and I agree. John Hilgeman 25:49 Is there anything you want to add? We still have a few minutes. Mary Hizer 25:56 Oh, what do I want to add? Want to thank folks. They've been just really great in making me feel welcome. We have general meetings once a month. What is the formula? The the first teenth Thursday of the month. So you know, the 13th, 14th, 15th, whenever that falls on Thursday, the teenth Thursday of the month. That's our general meeting. We meet at 7:30 in the Sharing Center quarters. Everyone is welcome, whether you're familiar and been working with St. Louis Effort for AIDS or a newcomer, it's a good informational time. We usually have someone to present a 15-20 minute program. The discussion last month, we had a representative from Social Security office come and talk about the different programs that are available. And then we also have a time for just information sharing, what Frank is doing, and the Sharing Center Steering Committee with what kinds of programs they have coming up. I usually get up and say a few words. I say usually, like, I've been there forever. I think this last time I announced that I'd made it through a month and hadn't been too overwhelmed. Any. Well, when the Red Hat affair was was going on, so any fundraisers that are coming up, that's, that's a good time to announce and let the general public know. It's also a good time for us to recruit for volunteers like the Into the Woods. It's going to be great fun. John Hilgeman 27:39 Should be, I'm looking forward to, yeah, Mary Hizer 27:42 I'm going Friday night. John Hilgeman 27:44 That's the Gala. Mary Hizer 27:45 Gala. It's gonna be fun. John Hilgeman 27:49 What is the address for St. Louis Effort for AIDS? Mary Hizer 27:52 Our address is 5622 Delmar. John Hilgeman 27:56 5622 Delmar. Mary Hizer 27:58 Correct. And it's just east of Debaliver on Delmar. John Hilgeman 28:04 Okay, and the phone number Mary Hizer 28:06 is 367-2382 John Hilgeman 28:11 367-2382, Mary Hizer 28:13 Correct. John Hilgeman 28:14 Is that the Hotline number? Mary Hizer 28:15 No, that's our business number. The Hotline number is 367-8400, John Hilgeman 28:21 Okay. 367-8400, correct. Okay. Well, thank you very much. We've had as our guest this morning, Mary Hizer, the Executive Director of St. Louis Effort for AIDS, and I thank you for being with us, Mary for sharing with us. I know we'll have you on again. Mary Hizer 28:39 Oh, I'd like that. John Hilgeman 28:40 Good and we hope you enjoyed our show and tune us in again next week. This is John Hilgeman for Lambda Reports. Transcribed by https://otter.ai