The founder

John Jerome has been dedicated to helping those with HIV and AIDS since the early 1990's.

His initial efforts were on behalf of his boyfriend Jamie, who died of the disease.

While Jamie was in St. Vincent's Hospital, John visited him regularly and when Jamie was sleeping, John would "make his rounds" of the AIDS ward that existed during those dark days, when little could be done to help those with the illness. That is when John met Verna, and they became friends.

After Verna and Jamie had died, John continued his regular visits to the AIDS ward, visiting the patients there, and helping them with things like health insurance, rent payments, personal matters, and generally trying to brighten their lives in one way or another.

Sometimes he went a bit too far, like the time he brought a friend his little dog to visit, or midnight trips with ice cream. (Please note: the hospital staff did not give John permission to do that, and they do not wish others to follow John's example as far as the bringing of contraband or violation of visiting hour policy)

Still, John brought many a smile to the people he visited at St. Vincent's.

And he still does today, as a regular volunteer, through St. Luke in the Field.

If you'd like to volunteer through St. Luke in the Field, please visit their website.

World AIDS Day – Mid State Correctional facility

June 2002

“Remembering With Hope”

It is early morning, May 10, 1996, I am in a room on the 7th Floor of St Vincent’s Hospital, Manhattan, also known as the AIDS Floor. I am holding the hand and looking down at the face of the man who has meant so very much to me, and that I have loved very much. There is only the sound of the beeps of the medical machines, filling the room. Dr Braun walks up beside me and says, “I’m sorry John, There is No Hope” He asks me if I am going to leave or stay until the end. I say, “I am going to stay.” The Doctor leaves me in the room and closes the door. There is a “Do Not Resuscitate” order. ‘There Is No Hope” he said. What happened to the hope? I am so frightened.

About 20 minutes later the breathing stops, I do everything I can to get the breathing started again. I press the button for the nurses, No one comes. I go to the door and yell out. No one comes. I run back to the bed and beg, “Please don’t go. Just one more hour, please.” But there is no more time, it is over. The hope is gone.

Five days before that, I am walking down the hallway of the hospital on the same floor. A frantic woman comes running up to me, “Please help me, my daughter has stopped breathing.” There is so much terror in the woman’s face that I run with her to her daughter’s room. There is a tall, thin black woman lying in the bed. Not breathing. Also a little girl, by the bed, crying, screaming out, “Mommy, Mommy, wake up.”

I start blowing in the woman’s mouth, blowing my breath into her limp body. She is cold. The daughter is still crying, “What is wrong with Mommy?” I run to the nurses station for help. The nurse looks at me, “I am sorry, sir, there is a do not resuscitate order for that patient, there is nothing I can do.”

I run back to the room. The woman is blowing her breath into her daughter’s body, the small child still screaming, “What is wrong with Mommy. Mommy, wake up.” The woman looks at me. I say, “They are not coming.” The woman’s tears start falling down on her dead daughter’s face, she strokes her hair with her hand. I put the woman and her small granddaughter in a taxi and take them home that evening. The woman tells me they have no money, and no insurance, but they had had “Hope”. That was the one thing they did have. The little girl’s name is Taisha. She is 6 years old, and lives with her grandmother on 126th Street in Harlem. Taisha's mother had been sick for a very long time. She shows me pictures she has drawn in kindergarten, turns to me and says, “I have AIDS too, but I am going to get better. I have to take care of Grandma.”

I saw so much hope in those wide brown eyes of that child. That hope started me on a journey. That journey took me all over the world, meeting people affected by this horrendous disease in Germany, France, Italy, Egypt, the Streets of Bogotá, Colombia, South Africa, Harlem, Beverly Hills, CA and so many more places. All age ranges, all races, and income levels. All these people sharing two things --the Virus, but also The Hope.

The hope in those faces of the children living in the streets of Bogotá, Colombia, was the same hope I saw in the face of the television actor, in Beverly Hills, that I knew.

I feel so blessed to have been touched by so many wonderful people, and how lucky I am that our lives crossed paths. And as I remember back, I am Remembering with Hope. The ones that I have known, who have passed on, I know they are somewhere, right now, watching me, Jamie, Verna, Scott, Isabel, Marcus, Cassandra, Tyrone, Joachim, and many more, and they are watching me with love and with hope, hoping for the day we find a cure, Hoping for the ones currently infected to live long full lives, and hoping there will be no new infections.

And as I remember back I can still see the hope in that small child’s eye. The hope is not gone, it lives in the spirits of all those wonderful people. So, as I think back, I remember, I remember with Hope.