Volunteers from the pharmaceutical company Gilead Sciences descended into the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco on Thursday afternoon to spruce up the green space and celebrate the announcement of a three-year commitment of $3 million for the memorial’s work.
The National AIDS Memorial and Gilead, a Foster City-based drugmaker, will direct $3 million over the course of three years to programming for HIV education, scholarships for individuals pursuing careers in public health, and the preservation of items tied to the HIV/AIDS epidemic.
Jane Stafford smiled as she walked through the shade of the redwood trees that help give the grove its name. As an executive director at Gilead Sciences and president of its philanthropic division, Gilead Foundation, she said the company has donated millions over the decades to support HIV/AIDS advocacy and Thursday’s commitment to the National AIDS Memorial is the single largest investment on one project in their history.
“We have been in a relationship for decades and it felt like this was the right moment to make a multi-year commitment to the National AIDS Memorial,” said Stafford. “Gilead is most well-known for scientific innovation and we’re also really keenly aware that it takes more than innovation and more than medicine to actually change and improve health for communities.”
John Cunningham, chief executive officer of the National AIDS Memorial, scurried across the grove and adjacent meadow greeting volunteers and thanking them for their work. He said the investment by the Gilead Foundation into his organization will help preserve the history of HIV in the country and help remind people of how much public health has advanced and the sacrifices communities have made.
“Remembrance work is future work and oftentimes we think of a memorial as just looking back,” said Cunningham as he pointed to the thousands of names etched into floor tiles that create a circle. “By having names engraved here, they’re more than the letters that are engraved, they’re rich lives that were lost. The same holds true for memorializing something as profound as the AIDS crisis, because at the root of the AIDS crisis rests stigma, discrimination, marginalization, and othering.”
The 10-acre AIDS Memorial Grove opened in 1991 as a place people could remember those lost due to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the latter half of the 20th century. Its creation was spearheaded by a coalition of advocates who saw loved ones die to the virus. In 1996, House Speaker Emerita Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, helped push the memorial into the nation’s sole federally-designated National AIDS Memorial.
Pelosi said the memorial and its work helps carry the fight against HIV/AIDS into a new generation but faces challenges from President Doanld Trump’s administration.
“In San Francisco, we lived through the earliest and most painful days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, and the AIDS Memorial Quilt stands as a powerful testament to the stories of those taken and the movement that demanded action,” said Pelosi. “This important investment will help preserve that legacy while empowering a new generation to carry forward the fight with compassion, courage, and hope until we banish HIV/AIDS to the dustbin of history.”
Ande Stone at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation said cuts at the federal and local levels will impact low-income communities of color the most. They said change is made by constant community-based action and cutting funds risks unraveling decades of progress.
“San Francisco has been a leading force nationally and globally in the response to HIV,” said Stone. “We’re deeply concerned however that at this moment, when the Trump administration is cutting funding federally and attacking the most at-risk communities around the country, we’re seeing Mayor (Daniel) Lurie and other SF leaders propose significant cuts to HIV prevention and LGBTQ+ health services locally.”
Toward the end of the morning volunteer event, Gert McMullin quietly helped keep panels of the AIDS Quilt clean. Affectionately known as the “Mother of the AIDS Quilt” she talked about the importance of keeping history alive.
I’ve always used to sew to make presents for my friends, and then this is kind of in the same manner,” said McMullin. “I knew these people. We should all know about them.”