Starbucks has teamed up with (RED)
Now that the holiday season is underway, you might think about some (RED).
Even when times are tough, a lot of people still look for ways to give to others in need. Here's one idea. If you're a Starbucks fan, here's a pretty simple and fast way to help others this holiday season: The coffee company is donating a nickel, from participating stores, for every exclusive beverage it's crafted to help (RED), the
organization co-founded by Bono that raises money and awareness for AIDS programs in Africa.
The program will run through Jan. 2. The special beverages are Peppermint Mocha Twist, Gingersnap Latte and Espresso Truffle. Mmmmm. I'm not a coffee drinker, but those do sound yummy.
And, on Dec. 1 -- the 20th anniversary of World AIDS Day -- Starbucks will broaden the 5-cent contribution to every hand-crafted beverage at participating stores.
Comments:
Ya know what's something?
Twenty years ago, I worked in a children's home (in direct care,) and we were one of the first facilities in the Metro Region back east to work with AIDS babies and AIDS children,
(Tons of missinformation, it had only recently gone from being called Male-Toxic-Shock-Syndrome to GRID, --and they still couldn't figure out how women were catching it...
We were regularly asked to leave churches (if) they thought we were brining HIV+ kids with us to the services.
-oh yeah, the Babies we cared for?
Were actually kept in an extremely remote residential facility in a small town off in the mountains that most of the staff didn't even know of
(let alone how to get to it,)
and nobody in that program could tell anyone else where it was
(I myself, because I was at a different location (worked with older kids 5+ yrs.) Only finally confirmed that the 'baby' and 'full-blown HIV-AIDS' site existed two years into working at the place, and that was because my roomie worked there.
Why such a secret?
My agency was constantly getting bomb threats and death threats because we were 'furthering a plague.'
(not caring for sick infants 'furthering a plague.'
Twenty years later?, the facility is still not well known, there a lot of 'safe-houses,' and extremely quiet foster parent set-ups, because they remember how it was.
Even direct care workers (foster parents) are not allowed to know if a kid has HIV/AIDS (due to Hipaa.)
But the progression of HIV-AIDS medication has come so far, (though it's not nearly as far as it needs to go,) that a lot of folks these days can live a relatively normal life with it, and it not be an automatic death sentence.
Which is good.
I'm just glad people don't go attempting to blow up infant child-care and foster facilities anymore,
ya-know?
Posted by: wet towel at November 28, 2008 12:45 PM
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