Indiana: Helping Hands Reach Out to Patients With AIDS

When Sierra Launer was in the first grade, she was taking pills five times daily to help manage HIV, with which she was born. "She had trouble remembering to take them when I wasn’t with her," said Debra Launer, who adopted Sierra as an infant. So when Debra learned of a project called Secret Santa, in which donors anonymously give gifts to HIV-positive people during the holiday season, she requested a $40 wristwatch with five alarms to remind the youngster when to take her lifesaving medicines. "It was such a wonderful gift," said Debra, a single woman in Bloomington, Ind., who cares for seven special-needs children -- three adopted plus four in foster care. "It enabled Sierra to manage her own health care."

The watch for Sierra is just one of hundreds of gifts given to people with HIV/AIDS during the past eight years through the Secret Santa project, renamed Helping Hands this year to avoid the misconception that it's only for Christians. "It's especially important this time of year that we more openly express our care and concern for [area AIDS patients] so they do not feel left out or forgotten," said Daniel Soto, the project's founder and coordinator.

Soto said the Helping Hands project relies on Positive-Link, a Bloomington Hospital program that provides HIV/AIDS services, to contact patients in Monroe, Ind., and surrounding counties, asking them if they would like to participate in the project. "If they say yes, they are asked to list an item or two they would like for Christmas," said Soto. Soto then solicits donors, who agree to buy holiday gifts anonymously for participating patients. Once donors buy and wrap their gifts, they take them to one of several drop-off sites in Bloomington. Soto collects the gifts and gives them to Positive-Link, which delivers them to the recipients. "These anonymous expressions of generosity send a message of care, love and human compassion," Soto said.

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