KEY partner profiles

The National AIDS Memorial relies solely on funding from personal donors and corporate partners to support its mission and programs. We are appreciative to all our partners we receive throughout the year.  Here are profiles highlighting some of our partners and the work they do in the fight against HIV/AIDS.

For information about how to support the National AIDS Memorial please contact Steve Sagaser at ssagaser@aidsmemorial.org or Oscar Fabian at ofabian@aidsmemorial.org.

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Gilead is an important and long-standing partner of the National AIDS Memorial.  Gilead’s leadership cannot be understated as last year the company provided a $2.4 million grant to fund moving the AIDS Memorial Quilt to San Francisco under the care and stewardship of the National AIDS Memorial.

The grant was the largest ever received by the National AIDS Memorial and has been crucial in moving the 48,000 panels of the Quilt to its permanent home to ensure that the iconic treasure can tell the story of AIDS to future generations.  The grant is also providing important resources to support the Quilt programs, which includes new educational efforts, displays, panel making and conservation, to help reach communities and populations adversely impacted by HIV through the symbolism of the Quilt.

Gilead’s support for the National AIDS Memorial doesn’t end there.  The company is a major funder of the Pedro Zamora Young Leaders Scholarship, which is providing financial support to young people who are carrying the torch of Pedro’s legacy into the future.  

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Five years ago the National AIDS Memorial launched a multi-year AIDS oral history project called Surviving Voices to ensure that stories and lessons of the epidemic are captured, curated, and retained for future generations.  

Through Chevron’s leadership as the presenting sponsor of the program, these important stories are being brought to the forefront, which serve as an important source of resilience, hope, activism and healing.  Although steeped in tragedy and prejudice, the story of AIDS is rich in relentless determination, and powerful in its success; a story with abundant lessons for current and future generations, as our nation confronts ongoing social justice challenges.

For years, Team Chevron employees have volunteered countless hours to maintain the memorial Grove, supported World AIDS Day events and inspired many through their Quilt making programs that honor people who have died of AIDS.

Chevron is a long-standing partner of the National AIDS Memorial, stepping up in so many ways to support our work, to help us share stories, to show its commitment in helping ensure that the lessons of the pandemic are forever captured in our hearts.

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In 2020, Vivent Health announced a long-term partnership with the National AIDS Memorial as the Premier National Community Partner of the AIDS Memorial Quilt to support Quilt programs and educational activities, including displays of the Quilt in communities across the United States.

Vivent Health began the partnership by displaying ten sections of the Quilt, consisting of 80 individual panels, at Vivent Health offices in six cities in Colorado, Missouri, Texas and Wisconsin.  The Quilt sections on display tnclude panels that represent each geographic area, providing an important educational resource for employees and the public about HIV/AIDS. 

Quest Diagnostics is an important partner with the National AIDS Memorial, providing leadership around annual World AIDS Day observances and as a lead supporter of the memorial’s Community Volunteer Workday program.  

The sacred ground of the 10-acre, living memorial honors all who have confronted the tragic HIV/AIDS pandemic; those who have died, and those who have shared their struggle, kept the vigils and supported each other during their final hours.

Throughout the year, Gilead team members volunteer in the memorial’s grove and the company has helped fund new equipment, plants, trees and shrubberies and support maintenance and hardscape improvements.

“The community volunteer workdays are at the heart of our mission in keeping our10-acre memorial grove a beautiful space for healing and remembrance,” says National AIDS Memorial executive director John Cunningham.

Since 1991, nearly 40,000 volunteers have participated in more than 300 Community Volunteer Workday, donating more than 200,000 volunteer hours and planting more than 10,000 trees, plants and shrubs. 

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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

In 2019, the Names Project Foundation and the National AIDS Memorial agreed to jointly gift care and of the AIDS Memorial Quilt’s archival collections to the prestigious American Folklife Center at the Library of Congress, making this collection available through the world’s largest public library.

This archival collection currently totals more than 200,000 items. It includes biographical records, correspondence, photographs, tributes, epitaphs, news clippings and artifacts submitted by panel makers that add context about the lives memorialized on the Quilt panels. The archive also documents the creation, marketing and exhibition of the Quilt over the past 32 years. Digital assets include images of all the Quilt blocks and detailed information about the creators of quilt panels.
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The American Folklife Center will preserve the archival records, which will be made available to researchers and the public after archivists process and organize the materials. 

The National AIDS Memorial and Library of Congress are working together with other partners to digitize the archival collections so they can be connected to the Quilt panels which can be viewed online at AIDSMemorial.org

CITY AND COUNTY OF SAN FRANCISCO

The City of San Francisco was an early supporter and advocate for the National AIDS Memorial, approving a plan in 1991 to restore a dilapidated and unusable part of Golden Gate Park - the de Laveaga Dell – to create and maintain the 10-acre memorial in the Grove.  Guided by the Recreation and Park Department, a team of prominent architects, landscape architects, and designers, along with a committee of volunteers, dedicated countless hours to create a landscape plan that would be fitting as a timeless living memorial. That work led to the groundbreaking and first Community Volunteer Workday for the AIDS Memorial in 1991.

That time represented some of the darkest days of the pandemic, with nobody knowing what the future held for AIDS or how many more would die from the disease.  That devastated community came together, to create the AIDS Grove, first as a place where all lives touched by AIDS could gather in solidarity, in the midst of widespread prejudice and stigma. What began as a comforting garden setting for compassion and remembrance evolved into an important national memorial dedicated to all those lost, as well as to keeping the history of the epidemic alive. 
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That dedication, commitment and support set in motion passage of legislation spearheaded by U.S. Representative Nancy Pelosi and signed into law by President Bill Clinton in 1996 making the Grove this nation's sole federally-designated National AIDS Memorial.