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Colorado AIDS Project turns 30

Colorado AIDS Project turns 30

For 30 years, the Denver Colorado AIDS Project (DCAP) has been a fighting force in Colorado for the more than 16,900 people diagnosed with HIV since 1982. With 3,355 total clients and 3,515 free HIV tests given in 2012, between their four offices Colorado AIDS Project (CAP) is serving 61 of Colorado’s 63 counties. 

CAP will be holding a Red Tie Affair on Feb. 1 at the Denver Museum of Nature and Science. CAP will be recognizing several of their partners through the years with awards at the event. There will also be a silent auction of 30 specially designed red ties. Designers include local celebrities, Katy Perry, John Travolta and the event’s emcee 9News anchor Kurt Montgomery. There will also be a chance of winning a set of pearl jewelry.

The Denver Colorado AIDS Project is the oldest branch of the statewide CAP. The organization’s four offices — splitting the state into the Northern, Southern, Western and Denver-area service regions — ran as independent organizations for decades, until October 2011 when they joined together in order to unify for funding.

“Some of the outlying offices were struggling in getting funding because here in Denver we have 2,600 clients, whereas in Grand Junction they have 160. So they were getting a lot of rejections when it came to funding — they didn’t have a high enough number for national organizations to take note of them,” said Jeff Trujillo, manager of marketing and events at CAP. “Rather than getting a no because you have ‘only 160 clients,’ even though those 160 clients are very important, now we have 4,000 clients.”

In addition to offering resources to get tested and helping pay for HIV meds for clients who can’t afford them on their own, CAP offers help finding employment, a food bank, counseling and housing services for HIV-positive clients who need them. An additional, large part of the organization’s mission is to lower the number of new HIV cases through prevention.

“We know that we’re doing a lot more in the community, and we’re really going to spread the word about the disease still being present in our community not just something that’s not just happening in African countries, it’s right here in our backyard as well,”
Trujillo said.

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