Poz Cafe celebrates serving 10,000th meal

Each month, people from three of Tucson's churches, synagogues and other faith-based communities meet to provide a lunch for those living with HIV and AIDS.

This month, Poz Cafe guests and volunteers celebrated serving the cafe's 10,000th meal.

"This program started as a small little handful of people that showed up one day for our very first month. It's just kept growing," said Scott Blades, one of the founders of the Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network, which sponsors the Poz Cafe. There are 39 local religious and spiritual communities involved with TIHAN.

After lunch at the Poz Cafe, there's bingo, as well as more time to socialize. Bags of donated toiletry items are distributed to help those living on fixed incomes.

Sheldon Reed said the Poz Cafe is "like having a holiday every month."

Reed, 53, found out he was HIV-positive in 1990 but didn't hear about the Poz Cafe until a couple of years ago. He said he had become socially isolated since his diagnosis.

"When you get in that place, it's difficult to snap out of it," he said.

The Poz Cafe has helped him reconnect with the community.

"They were total strangers, and they treated you like they'd known you your whole life," he said.

The luncheon begins at 11:30 a.m. on the third Thursday of each month at St. Francis in the Foothills United Methodist Church, 4625 E. River Road.

The Rev. David Wilkinson, senior pastor at the church, said TIHAN and the cafe are not only invaluable to those living with HIV, but also to those who volunteer to help.

He said that for Christians, it means moving "beyond distortions and misinterpretations of Scripture into an awareness of what true discipleship is."

"When we work as an 'interfaith community' on the same challenge, we possess the tools for broadening this awareness not only to church, synagogue, mosque and temple congregants, but the entire Tucson community," he wrote in an e-mail about TIHAN.

In addition to the cafe, TIHAN provides transportation, programs and emotional and financial support for those with HIV.

There are 2,500 people living with HIV in Southern Arizona, Blades said, and about 1 million nationwide. Worldwide, an estimated 33 million people are HIV-positive.

TIHAN volunteer Janet Smith said she didn't know much about HIV when her son, Eric Smith, died of AIDS in 1992 at age 29.

Eric had known he was HIV-positive for about a decade, but Smith said she didn't find out until a couple of years before her son died.

Smith, 72, started volunteering for TIHAN a couple of years after losing Eric.

"It gave me a place to put some of my emotions," she said. She wishes her son had been able to enjoy the Poz Cafe before he died.

"I know my son was isolated. I know it was hard for him," she said. "I think, 'My God, if Eric had had this, it would have meant a lot to him.' "

Blades said they are now averaging between 100 and 120 Poz Cafe guests each month. "We've had people want us to do it more than once a month, but it's a pretty big undertaking," he said.

Marilyn Townley of the Green Valley Community Church was one of the volunteers at the cafe this month.

Townley, 77, said that while she normally hikes on Thursdays, she jumped at the chance to work at the Poz Cafe again after first volunteering last year. She said she was very moved by her first experience and the feeling of community among the Poz Cafe volunteers and guests.

Georgeannie Llamas credits the organization with saving her life.

"When I got diagnosed, I wasn't very receptive to being around anybody," said Llamas, a former Army interpreter and medic. "I was having a hard time just dealing with being positive."

People began shunning her, she said. There were rumors that she had been promiscuous or a drug addict, but Llamas said she was actually infected following a sexual assault.

Llamas, 56, said it was a neighbor who kept insisting she attend the Poz Cafe luncheon. Finally, she said she agreed to go "just to get him off my back."

It changed her life.

"There were tons and tons of people there. I realized right then and there, I was not the only one with HIV," she said.

People gathered around her, she said. They hugged her.

"I thought, 'Here I am. I'm living with HIV and I'm being treated like I'm special, but not in a negative way,' " she said. "It gave me a new hope to live. I felt, you know, I might have this disease, but I'm still a human being."

Pastor Wilkinson said the Poz Cafe is "the clearest demonstration of the Gospel that we do at St. Francis."

"Once we move beyond that fear we discover that the fear originated in ourselves, and we become compassionate human beings," he wrote in an e-mail.

"We then move toward a realization that no one is untouchable; no one is separate; no one is enemy or rejected. In fact, we are all 'one incredible family.'"

Tucson interfaith hiv/aids network

How you can help

The 11th annual "Treasures for TIHAN," a live and silent auction, will be held beginning at 6:30 p.m. Saturday at the Doubletree Hotel at Reid Park, 445 S. Alvernon Way.

The initials TIHAN stand for the Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network.

The evening will include music, food and auction items to raise money for TIHAN's programs and services. Tickets are $65 in advance, or $75 at the door ($32 is tax-deductible).

Tickets can be purchased by calling 299-6647, or by visiting online at www.tihan.org.

Toiletry items — such as soap, shampoo, toothpaste, toothbrushes, dental floss and toilet paper — for people with HIV and AIDS are always needed and can be dropped off at TIHAN, 1011 N. Craycroft Road, No. 301.