All things are possible...

Late post tonight. I started a charitable organization called Bracelet of Hope 14 years ago that has the audacious goal of ending the AIDS pandemic in Lesotho, Africa. It is a beautiful country that I fell in love with so many years ago. My first visit there was in 2006. With a remarkable team, we started by opening a provincially funded HIV clinic in Guelph to help address the needs of the HIV positive patients in south western Ontario. Once this clinic was opened, we saw the devastation that the AIDS pandemic was causing in sub Saharan Africa. We created Bracelet of Hope. Here is what this community did: In the first 2 and 1/2 years, Guelph and it's surrounding areas raised $1 million for the first HIV/AIDS clinic in Lesotho. Together, we kept 11,000 people alive on treatment throughout 2009. AIDS has killed 70 million people, most of them in Africa, most of them female and many of them children. We are still in the middle of that fight. Tonight we held our monthly board meeting.

I miss seeing these amazing board members in person. I miss hugging them. It is not the same over video.

There is a point as to why I am telling you this. COVID is the second pandemic that I have thrown myself into, like jumping off a cliff. Two pandemics in one career. I have enough experience from the first pandemic to understand what will happen with the present pandemic.

It is the same. Four people knocked on my back door today. One dropped off a bag of disposable gowns. I cried. Another person dropped off 6 cloth surgical gowns, washed and sterilized. I cried again. That person drove all the way form Kitchener. I am crying now. Thank you.

Another beautiful person asked me to give $100 to the single mom with the disabled son.

One woman dropped off a bag of beautiful homemade surgical caps, and another dropped off a box of N95 masks. I will share these with other health care providers so that they too can continue to see patients and be safe.

This kind of community action and generosity under the wings of Bracelet of Hope saved thousands of lives and preserved hundreds of families affected by HIV and continues to do so. There is also a magnificent global response that led to the development of treatments for HIV that allow for a normal life expectancy.

Generous, courageous, and fearless responses from the community level to the global level will end AIDS. We responded to the AIDS pandemic. We are responding to the COVID 19 pandemic in the same way.

Nothing can beat this kind of human collaboration and generosity. Adversity brings out the best in all of us. It hones our intelligence, our creativity and our ability to innovate. It stirs us to give from our souls. You are proving it once again. Nothing is impossible.

We will be on the other side of COVID 19 in no time flat. We will admire the acts of heroism and generosity and be in awe of all the goodness that exists in each of us.

Broken record...but we have so got this.

Let's keep going fellow warriors. This kind of stuff is what we were made for. Look up and see the wonder in who we are.

Anne-Marie

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