Creating Change and Community Through the National AIDS Memorial
The Current State of the AIDS Crisis
While HIV is no longer at the forefront of public attention in 2024, it is certainly still at the forefront of the minds of those hundreds of thousands still living with HIV. It is certainly on the minds of the millions more who have lost someone to AIDS throughout the four decades of this ongoing crisis. There is still so much work to be done.
What kind of work is there to be done? This is a question for Troy Brunet, whose life story is one of perseverance and giving back. “I have been through a lot of challenges,” Troy said in a massive understatement. After growing up as a gay man in Louisiana, a challenge in its own right, Troy has endured six hip replacements, surgeries to both knees, replacements to both shoulders and a multi-month coma while living with HIV. But this hasn’t stopped Troy from giving back. “I would rather be up doing something and helping someone than sitting down and relaxing.”
Volunteering at the National AIDS Memorial Grove
Every month throughout the spring, summer, and autumn, Troy makes his way to the National AIDS Memorial Grove. He leads a team from the Metropolitan Community Church in San Francisco, where he’s been a member for almost 20 years. There, Troy and other volunteers do more than simply clear debris, plant trees, and support infrastructure projects. They provide thousands of people annually with a 10-acre sacred ground honoring those impacted by the AIDS crisis. The Grove stands to tell the story of AIDS to current and future generations, striving to protect communities from the harm of fear, silence, discrimination, and stigma.
Since the start of the AIDS crisis, those impacted have felt collective grief and sought out positive ways to express it. At the Grove, Troy and other volunteers share stories and remember life, celebrating the unique and beautiful individuals they’ve lost. “I strive to find joy out of even the most miserable situations.” The Grove is a model for current and future communities struggling to find a positive space to express grief.
This experience of celebrating the unique stories of those lost to AIDS harkens back to one of Troy’s previous experiences amidst the AIDS crisis. While living in Anchorage, AK, in the early ‘90s, Troy volunteered at an early AIDS Memorial Quilt display. “I remember walking around and seeing the impact it had on people who had lost people… they were breaking down into tears.”
Volunteering with the AIDS Memorial Quilt
Elizabeth Schluntz, a Bay Area school teacher, knows a thing or two about the power of the Quilt. “The first time I walked into the warehouse, I burst into tears,” she said of her initial experience volunteering at the Quilt’s home in San Leandro, CA.
Considered the largest community folk arts project in the world, the AIDS Memorial Quilt is composed of panels made by individuals and groups to honor, remember, and celebrate the stories and lives of those lost to HIV/AIDS. Today, there are roughly 50,000 panels dedicated to more than 110,000 individuals in this 54-ton tapestry. How are these panels and the stories and lives they embody maintained? Through the work of volunteers like Elizabeth.
These volunteers take the time to patch up and maintain each panel, ensuring that these tributes to lives lost will not fade or be forgotten. “My first day there,” Elizabeth recalled, “I was reattaching a loose Beanie Baby. It was a pig wearing a full leather outfit. Some of the animal's stuffing material seemed to have hardened over the years. Elizabeth went to Gert McMullin, one of the founders of the AIDS Quilt, to ask if she should take the hardened material out of the pig and restuff it.
“Honey…” Gert said after feeling the lumps in the Beanie Baby, “these are his cremains.”
This panel, and so many like it, are true memorials to those who have fallen. It is up to volunteers like Elizabeth to maintain them.
Finding Community through Volunteerism
Elizabeth and Troy are not alone in their mission to make a difference. Both are quick to explain how the community that comes out to volunteer is not only effective at fighting for those lost for a just future, but fighting for each other as well. “This community helped me get through some of those hardest times,” Troy explained.
“We all help each other out,” Elizabeth added. “Even though (the Quilt) represents everyone who died… it’s a celebration of them. We talk about them and their lives and get through it together.”
Troy and Elizabeth encourage others to join the National AIDS Memorial community. It’s “Such a beautiful community,” Troy said of the National AIDS Memorial family. “Seeing people come through, especially new people… to see them change from being uncomfortable to feeling happy and welcomed is inspiring.”
Bay Area Volunteer Opportunities
If you, like Elizabeth and Troy, are interested in making a difference and finding community, join us.
Our 2024 Grove Community Workdays take place on the third Saturday of every month March-October:
- March 16th / April 20th / May 18th / June 15th / July 20th / August 17th / September 21st / October 19th
- Nancy Pelosi Drive & Bowling Green Dr, San Francisco, CA 94122
Learn more about Grove Community Workdays here.
Our 2024 Quilt workshops take place twice a month throughout the year. No quilting experience is required!:
- Every 2nd Saturday of the month at 543 Castro Street in San Francisco
- Every 4th Saturday of the month at 130 Doolittle Drive, #2 in San Leandro
Learn more about Quilt workshops and Quilt panel-making, preservation, and conservation here.
We hope to see you soon! In particular, Elizabeth would like to see more young people get involved. “My son didn’t know about the Quilt, and I’m concerned about that,” Elizabeth explained. “I don’t want the next generation to be complacent.” As a teacher, Elizabeth sees the importance of getting involved early in life.
Troy, in a similar vein, started volunteering in his community when he was five years old. “That’s how I was raised,” he said. “To look for opportunities to give back.”
Join the National AIDS Memorial community, bring a friend or loved one, and help us inspire new generations of activists in the fight against stigma, denial, and hate for a just future.
