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Churches in Albany Support Drop-In Center for Those Who Are Living with AIDS

Episcopal News Service. May 24, 1990 [90148]

W. Michael Losinger

There was standing room only at Grace and Holy Innocents Church in Albany, New York, on May 13 as Bishop David Ball blessed an icon of Damien the Leper, a 19th-century Roman Catholic priest who went to live at a Hawaiian leper colony and eventually died of the disease.

Members from over a dozen participating Episcopal parishes in the Diocese of Albany joined in the dedicatory service of healing and Eucharist, a celebration culminating two years of discussion, planning -- and action leading to a drop-in center for those who are living with AIDS. Celebrant and preacher the Rev. Randolph Frew drew long applause when he read congratulations from Presiding Bishop Edmond Browning. Browning emphasized the Episcopal Church's commitment to the issue, and he expressed gratitude for the leadership of the parish and its "energy and vision around the project."

In Jacksonville, Florida, St. John's Cathedral prayed for the Damien Center, which is a companion AIDS ministry to its own Stephens AIDS Ministry. A member of that group carried its gift banner in the Albany service.

The Damien icon's proclamation that "Our Lord permits us now and then to pick a beautiful rose among sharp thorns" was especially appropriate for many persons living with AIDS, their friends and caregivers, for whom life can often seem to have all too many thorns.

The Damien Center, which opened in Albany one Thursday night in April, is an attempt to bring some beauty and some balm, a rose of sorts. The center, a ministry of Grace and Holy Innocents and supporting parishes, provides nurture, support, counsel, and information to persons who test positive for the HIV virus and AIDS, and to those who support them.

The center in the diocese, which stretches from the mid-Hudson Valley to New York's Canadian border, is one of the first AIDS drop-in centers in the nation. The program grew out of the work of the diocesan AIDS task force and a local physician who treats many AIDS patients. It received additional impetus from the National Episcopal AIDS Conference in Cincinnati last fall (ENS 89222, November 8). Staffed by volunteer counselors and a priest each night, it is now open Tuesday and Thursday nights to provide a "living-room" center for kinship and help. A coordinator is also available each night to assist volunteers and to provide information about services available in the Albany area for persons living with AIDS.

Organizers hope to expand the center to five-night-a-week operation and to add a food pantry, clothing closet, and support group meeting rooms, with the entire operation open to the growing number of people in the Capital District who are living with AIDS or who have tested positive for the HIV virus.

According to the Rev. Ronald Gerber, rector at Grace and Holy Innocents, the Damien Center "provides a safe, nonjudgmental, and supportive place for persons who may have no family, for the increasingly isolated, and for those who, like all of us, are sometimes overwhelmed by the tasks of daily life."

In addition to worship services at the center, participating parishes will host monthly dinners, and a special committee will provide AIDS seminars in parishes throughout the diocese to educate and mobilize Episcopal resources for increased AIDS ministry.

Volunteers spent several weekends renovating, painting, and cleaning the three meeting rooms at the church that make up the center. Local chapters of Integrity and Dignity, Episcopal and Roman Catholic organizations for gays and lesbians, joined to purchase new carpets, and several parishes and other supporters have donated furniture.

[thumbnail: AIDS Drop-in Center Dedic...]