Penn West Campus displays AIDS Memorial Quilt panels

PA Thrive Partnership will display AIDS Memorial Quilt panels on all three Western Penn campuses in observance of World AIDS Day. The quilt will be on display at Clarion’s Eagle Commons, Dec. 5, 11 a.m.-2 p.m.; Dec. 6, 11 a.m.-2 p.m., Pogue Student Center, Edinboro; Dec. 7, 11 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the Cal Natalie Student Center.

The purpose of the quilt is to honor those who have died from HIV/AIDS, educate the community, and reduce the stigma of the disease. According to the National AIDS Memorial website, during the height of the AIDS epidemic in the late 1980s, a group of strangers gathered in a San Francisco storefront to commemorate the names and lives of loved ones they feared history would forget. Through this seemingly simple act of love, the first quilt was born. It consists of more than 50,000 individual 3 x 6-foot memorial panels commemorating the more than 110,000 people who have died from AIDS. The quilt continues to grow.

Thanks to the efforts of the PA Thrive Partnership and similar organizations, AIDS is no longer the death sentence it once was. Because of improvements in the quality and availability of HIV care, people are now living with HIV for 30 years or more, said Darrin Kinander, executive director of the PA Thrive Partnership. Drugs can reduce the viral load in people with AIDS by stopping the virus from replicating. The organization’s caseload stands at 390.

The PA Thrive Partnership was founded in 1991 as the Northwest Pennsylvania Rural AIDS Alliance and serves 13 counties in the northwest part of the state. The organization has since expanded to include 12 counties in the north central region, and in 2022 it was renamed the PA Thrive Partnership. Its goal is to work with and for the communities it serves to collaborate on the treatment of HIV and AIDS to improve, protect and promote individual health.

Services include free and confidential HIV and Hepatitis C testing at walk-in or mobile clinics in Clarion, Jefferson, Venango, Warren, Crawford, Lawrence and Erie counties; medical case management; hardship and Housing assistance; mental health services; pharmacies; and high-impact prevention. Transportation assistance is available through the clinic and medical case management.

PA Thrive Partnership adheres to HIPPA confidentiality guidelines. For service, please call 814-297-8220 (Clarion County) or 814-454-3811 (Erie County), or visit https://pa-thrive.com.