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| AIDS Task Force Makes Donation |
An organization says every dollar it receives to help area residents who have contracted HIV and AIDS is important now more than ever.
The HIV/AIDS Task Force of Western Illinois gave a $2,500 check to the Peoria-based organization Friends of People with AIDS -- the proceeds from the Red Ribbon Classic held earlier this year in Galesburg -- as part of the annual World AIDS Day ceremony at the Knox County Health Department in Galesburg Monday.
Mike McGinn is CEO of "Friends", and says 285 clients were helped last year, along with about another three-thousand emergency requests, all of whom need help just beyond dealing with HIV/AIDS. "That assistance comes in the form of emergency rent, utility, mileage reimbursement, and then case-by-case emergency assistance, which totalled over $330,000 (in 2007)," McGinn said. "The numbers keep increasing. We average about 40 new clients each year. There's not been a decline in HIV in over 15 years."
McGinn says given the down economy, he expects more and more help to be needed among the area's HIV and AIDS patients, and with state and federal funding continuing to be uncertain, he says the public help continues to be appreciated.
"Friends" serves people in about a dozen counties including Knox and has been in operation since 1990.
(Mike McGinn, left, CEO of Friends of People with AIDS in Peoria, receives a $2,500 check from Dewey Lytle, President of the HIV/AIDS Task Force of Western Illinois. WGIL News Story and Photo by Will Stevenson.) |
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| 12 02 08 by Newsroom |
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