By
Ayse Guner
Arizona Daily Wildcat
UA students holding silent auction next Wed. to help children
James Hughes Jr. takes eight pills twice every day.
Hughes, a 10-year-old HIV patient, knows the name of each medication he receives and how it benefits him.
"I take all eight at the same time, but big blue ones are hard to swallow," Hughes said.
Hughes is one of 50 children benefiting from a local non-profit organization helping women and children infected with or affected by with Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Acquired Immune Deficiency System.
If a group of University of Arizona students, who are organizing a benefit dinner and variety show next week, can raise enough funding for the children, at least 40 of them will go to an all-expense weekend long camp.
The dinner and silent auction - "A Second Chance at Life" - will begin at 6:30 p.m. on Dec. 6 at UA Senior Ballroom. The organizations working toward the event include the Alpha Epsilon Delta pre-medical honor society, a UA-based student organization involved in community work, the Southern Arizona Aids Foundation and Casa Gloriosa.
Samantha de Dios, president of Alpha Epsilon Delta and a UA psychology graduate student, said she has wanted to help children with AIDS ever since she watched a film called "History of Aids in America," which reflected how the disease spread in the United States.
To disperse her efforts into the community, de Dios called several organizations such as SAAF, which then directed her to Casa Gloriosa, an organization providing shelter and support for AIDS patients. She visited the shelter several times to find out what activities the children wanted to do at the camp.
By donating her energy and inspiration, she, along with the owners of Casa Gloriosa decided to send children to a spring camp where the children could benefit from numerous activities such as basketball, arts and crafts, music and HIV lectures in a natural environment, she said.
There are two possible locations for the campsite - Mount Lemmon and Sierra Vista. However, either place costs about $6,000, de Dios said.
About $4,500 has already been raised from ticket sales for the dinner. Even if the rest cannot be provided, de Dios is determined to send the children to the camp, she said.
She said they will work a day at the campsite cleaning in exchange for a discounted rate, she said.
The support that the community can provide forms an essential contribution for the lives of HIV patients, de Dios said.
"If not (for) the support, their lives could be hard, because the disease itself is a hard one to live with," she said. "They have this huge burden because they could lose a parent at any time or if they forget to take their medication, they could get sick easily."
AIDS can be transmitted through sexual activity, blood transfusions and sharing needles. Statewide, 4,386 people were infected with HIV last year, according to Center for Disease Control and Prevention Web site.
Casa Gloriosa, where James lived for two years after his mother died of AIDS, is just one of the many organizations in Tucson that help people with AIDS.
James Hughes Sr., James's father, said the organization helped his son to become healthier and more positive.
"His attitude changed, his HIV is undetectable and he is more centered as a child," Hughes Sr. said, who is also excited about his son being able to go to a camp with other patients.
"It will help him realize that he is not alone," he said.
In 1996, a Tucson couple, Ken and Johna Reeves formed the organization after learning Ken was HIV positive. First serving women only, the organization soon began accepting and educating children about the deadly immune deficiency disease as well, Johna Reeves said.
Children often ask, "'Where am I going to live when you die, mom?'," Johna Reeves said. She adopted two children after their parents died.
De Dios was a good listener for those children and provided a good sense of kindness, Reeves said. "When you are a child in an HIV-positive family, kindness is very rare experience."
Hughes, a fourth-grader, wants to be a basketball player when he grows up.
The camp will offer him the chance to play ball, he said.
"As long as I get the ball, I don't care what I play," he said.
He will also give speeches at the campsite about AIDS.
"I tell them 'don't do any of those four things'," Hughes said. "There are three ways you can get the disease (by an individual's own doing), but the fourth one (by birth), that's not your decision."
