Two days after this year’s World AIDS Day, the Philadelphia HIV/AIDS community will come together to pay homage to an agency that has been at the forefront of the city’s fight against the epidemic for the past two decades.
Philadelphia FIGHT will celebrate its 20th anniversary with its We Remember Gala, beginning at 6 p.m. Dec. 3 at The Ritz-Carlton Philadelphia, 10 Avenue of the Arts.
The annual fundraising gala will include dinner and live music, an awards presentation and a silent auction, with a portion of the AIDS quilt on display.
FIGHT, which stands for Field Initiating Group for HIV Trials, was founded in October 1990 by Dr. John Turner, who passed away in 2008.
The agency was originally research-based and, as such, invested most of its energy into looking for therapies for those dealing with the disease.
Jane Shull, FIGHT executive director, said the organization was created when the epidemic was at one of its most turbulent stages.
“Compared to now, it was pretty desperate,” Shull said. “When FIGHT was founded, there was virtually no treatment available. There was only AZT, and that was still being used as monotherapy, which has since been shown to be not all that effective.”
Shull noted, however, that the starkest contrast lies in the then-dearth of individuals who were willing to treat the disease.
“The real limits were in where people could go for care. There weren’t many AIDS doctors, and it was particularly bad for people who had Medicaid because there were almost no clinics that would see people who didn’t have private insurance. There was a lot of stigma. There’s still a lot now, but there was much more back then.”
Although FIGHT originally functioned solely as a research venue, Shull said it saw the need for continued evolution, as the crisis began to take on a different shape throughout the past 20 years.
“As time went on, our mission didn’t shift, but it expanded from only doing research to really trying to meet as many of the needs of the people who were living with HIV as we could,” she said. “We’ve expanded to doing clinical care, medical care, social services like mental-health services, and the other big area has been education of all kinds.”
Among its major milestones in the past 20 years are the creation of the Youth Health Empowerment Project in 1994, which provides outlets and resources for at-risk youth, and the Jonathan Lax Treatment Center in 1997, which now serves 1,200 people annually.
FIGHT, which offers the only lending library devoted solely to HIV/AIDS topics in the country, also pioneered educational initiatives such as Project TEACH, which provides practical education for newly diagnosed HIV-positive individuals, and the annual AIDS Education Month, which this past year drew participation from 5,000 people.
FIGHT has also seen a wealth of organizational growth.
The organization was originally launched with a $25,000 grant from The American Foundation for AIDS Research — which will be honored with the Jonathan Lax Award at the gala for this contribution — that was matched by $40,000 from the city’s health department, and Shull said FIGHT now operates with an annual budget of about $10 million.
Although the agency has grown immensely, Shull said it has never grown away from its original goal.
“We’ve seen a growth in revenue, a growth in program, a growth in services, but in spite of that, I think we’re proudest that we’ve remained mission-driven,” she said. “We’ve always been focused on ending the AIDS epidemic. We’ve expanded, but we’ve never forgotten what we’re working for, and all of that work is meant to bring us closer to one day ending this epidemic.”
For more information or to purchase tickets for the gala, visit www.fight.org or call (215) 525-8628. General-admission tickets are $150 each, or $275 for a couple.
Jen Colletta can be reached at [email protected].