Monthly Musings from THP's Executive Director

"Sometimes the smallest things take up the most room in your heart."

~ Winnie the Pooh

Another Dining for Friends season has come and gone and I'm always left with a wonderful montage of highlights that I revisit on days when I need a lift.

This year's highlight reel includes a former board member coming into the office the afternoon before the Dessert Gala to drop off a check. She wasn't able to have a party this year due to a challenging family situation.

Fundraising 101 teaches you to never look at a donor's check in front of them so I kept the check folded and then stepped into my office to put it on my desk while she talked to my colleague, Ken. The check happened to unfold and I saw the amount. It was five figures. That's a big gift for Dining for Friends. My heart swelled and I did what any halfway decent fundraiser would do, I cried a little.

Addison Ore, Executive Director

When I came out of my office, I hugged her and she cried a little, too. She said, "Addison, you know our family isn't rich but we do give with our heart and you know that THP has our heart."

Then there was a much smaller gift, in the single digits, that came from my friend, Adam, who is 7. He came to the Dessert Gala from Raleigh with his two sisters and his mother, my good friend, Sarah. He wanted to personally deliver his gift to me, money he had recently received from the tooth fairy.

And that, in a nutshell is Dining for Friends - all gifts great and small and everything in between.

"It takes a village" has become an overused cliché but it really does ring true here at THP. It takes a lot of parties and a lot of gifts to get us to our goal each year and we're still about $10,000 short of our goal of $119,000 this year.

There's no mystery here - fundraising is hard and every non-profit has to struggle with donor fatigue, the economy and 1,001 other variables. THP Development staff will be meeting for a one day retreat next week to talk about Dining for Friends next year but next year doesn't help us pay our bills today.

That's why in a few days, many of you will be receiving a letter from us in your mail box asking for more. We need to close that $10,000 gap so that we can continue to meet the needs of our clients.

I don't usually speak so bluntly about money in my conversations with you but by virtue of your financial support, many of you over years and years, you are genuinely invested in our mission and you deserve to know why we're asking again so soon after our biggest event of the year.

As government and foundation funding continues to be flat at best, we continue to aggressively look for new sources of revenue but when push comes to shove, we always come back to you.

And for almost thirty years, you have answered our call.

I, for one, don't have the words adequate or big enough to thank you for that.

With humble gratitude,

Support THP at the "New" Crafted's Grand Opening!

Join us on Sunday, June 14th from 5-9 pm at

Crafted - the Art of Street Food's Official Grand Opening for a community street fair in collaboration with Crafted, Deep Roots Market, and Preyer Brewing Co.

A portion of the proceeds from Crafted's special night will directly benefit the services and programs that make Triad Health Project.

Many thanks to Kris Fuller and Rhonda Fuller for choosing to make their special night about our amazing community and HIV/AIDS awareness.

photos taken by 1808 magazine

Join us at the CUCC Community Justice Social!

National HIV Testing Day

We honor this day as a day for making visible the need for regular HIV testing as a part of everyone's health care strategy. Our community is ONE 4 ZERO. Help us honor National HIV Testing Day, and THP's mission to become ONE 4 ZERO by joining us on Saturday, June 27th from 10 am to 2pm at Sternberger Park, right next to THP on Summit Avenue.

We will have FREE hotdogs with fixings, chips, bottled water and cans of soda-just to say THANK YOU to the community. Most importantly, we will be offering FREE, CONFIDENTIAL HIV and STI testing from 10am to 2pm, and will provide a $5 WalMart gift card for everyone who gets tested, plus, plenty of condoms, lubricant samples, and other safer sex supplies and brochures, too.

It's all FREE, it's all about KNOWING YOUR STATUS, GETTING TESTED, and helping our COMMUNITY become ONE 4 ZERO new HIV infections in our lifetime.

Cooking with Ninevah

Ninevah made four delightful dips for the Holy Trinity's 3rd Annual Fine Dining for Friends as appetizers for guests to enjoy. They were so delicious and such a hit, we decided to include two of our favorite dip recipes! Go to www.makethisyoursnc.com for the all four recipes and the directions!

Green Olive, Walnut and Pomegranate Dip

(adapted from Food and Wine, November 2014, p22)

makes 2 ¼ cups

Ingredients:

½ cup walnuts

2 cups pitted briny green olives, finely chopped

½ cup pomegranate seeds (from one-half fresh pomegranate)

3 tablespoons pomegranate molasses

3 tablespoons finely chopped fresh tarragon (or 3 teaspoons dried tarragon)

¼ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper

3 tablespoons extra virgin olive oil

1 tablespoon red wine vinegar

Roasted Beet and Walnut Dip

(adapted from Bon Appetit, October 2014, p.20)

makes about 1 ½ cups

Ingredients:

1 pound beets, green tops removed, washed, dried, peeled

1 tablespoon + 1 ½ teaspoons extra virgin olive oil

½ teaspoon fine sea salt, divided use

½ teaspoon coarse ground black pepper, divided use

½ cup walnuts, toasted

2 tablespoons fresh dill, chopped (or 2 teaspoons dried dill), plus additional for finishing

2 tablespoons crème fraiche, plus additional for finishing

1 teaspoon Sherry vinegar

½ teaspoon caraway seeds, toasted, plus additional for finishing

extra virgin olive oil for finishing

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We Need Your Help.

Triad Health Project's 26th Annual Dining for Friends was, as always, a powerful celebration of our community's support of people living with HIV/AIDS.

But we're still short of our goal for the event and we need to humbly ask you one more time to consider a gift to this year's Dining for Friends. Maybe you were out of town and missed it this year or maybe you meant to make a gift and it just slipped your mind.

There's still time to remember that over 2,000 people in Guilford County are living with HIV/AIDS and that over a quarter of them sought help at THP in the past year.

Reaching our goal for this event isn't about bragging rights or ego, it is about having enough resources to meet the

needs of our clients.

If you've made a gift, and we know many of you have made more than one, we thank you for your generosity.

But we can't fall short - too many people are counting on us.

We need your help.

Every client matters and every dollar matters. You can help by sending your check to THP, PO Box 5716, Greensboro, NC 27435 or by donating online.

Mark's Mentionings

Mark Cassity, Director of Higher Ground

My parents moved a lot, which means, as a kid, I moved a lot, too. Or, truer, the Marine Corps moved my Dad a lot and the rest of us would pretty much just follow him around. It was never suggested to me that there was any other way for a world to be. At any rate, I was afraid every time we moved and I was afraid a lot of the time in-between moving, too. This is not to say that I wasn't happy and carefree up to the eyeballs a lot of the time, too; but the fear never got too far from my orbit.

Again, I didn't know there was an alternative, really; you just figure whatever your life is is how life is. And my life had some supersized portions of your garden-variety anxieties, especially when we moved: What if they laugh at me? What if I get something wrong? What if all the kids speak a different language and have three heads each and I throw-up in the hall my first day?

And then when I got a little older, it occurred to me that moving could be a new start and I could leave my fearful self behind and start to be the "real me," brave and swashbuckling and (above all else) cool, extremely cool.

And then we would move and I would do what I did every time we moved. I would cry. A lot. Crying is not cool. It's like the total opposite.

As an adult, I've been blessed by a number of people who have helped me (and continue to help me) with fear, especially after it ultimately blossomed into a debilitating horror in my 30's. They've helped me do what, for me, are very brave things. For instance, one day I spoke my mind though my voice was shaking. It sounds like a little thing but I thought it was going to kill me. My voice shook and shook, and I kept talking. I began to realize that I had spent nearly a lifetime trying to theorize myself into being brave, when I was actually just trying to skip an inescapable prerequisite. See, if you want to be brave, it turns out there is one thing you absolutely, unequivocally must be first. You have to be really, really, really scared.

June's Higher Ground Calendar

Kanuga Retreat

This weekend, June 5-7, 30+ people living with HIV/AIDS, staff, and volunteers from Triad Health Project will attend the 24th Annual AIDS Kanuga Conference and Spiritual Retreat in the mountains of Hendersonville, NC.

We will join 250 individuals from across the Southeast for spiritual renewal and fellowship. Keep posted for updates and pics!

Replacements Ltd.'s

Gracious hosts, Bob Page and Dale Frederiksen, opened their home and their hearts for another Dining for Friends party last month.

They were able to raise over $15,000 for THP! Congrats on being the #1 fundraising party this DFF season!

Bob is pictured with his guest, Zach Wahls, who is an author, LGBT equality activist, and co-founder of Scouts for Equality.

Hats Off to New DFF Parties!

Many thanks to those who stepped up to host new DFF parties this year! From Ribbons and Roses in High Point, to the "Loaves and Fishes" Fish Fry at Congregational UCC, to virtual fundraisers online, we are thrilled to see new Dining for Friends traditions!

Greensboro High Point

801 Summit Avenue 620 English Road

P.O. Box 5716 P.O. Box 616

Greensboro, NC 27435 High Point, NC 27262

(336) 275-1654 (336) 884-4116