Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/15710
SEPTEMBER 2010 FOOD & WINE 74 NOURISHING A COMMUNITY Margo Martinez thinks back to 1985, when AIDS began spreading through the city and her church's congregation at an unbelievable rate. Her head sinks and her voice cracks as she takes herself back to those days more than two decades ago. "There were just so many that…" she said, before she drops her head and begins crying. "I hate going back there," she continued moments later. At the time, there were many unknowns about HIV and AIDS. How did the disease spread? What was the cause? How easily could one catch it? Many steered clear of those with the disease. Martinez and other members of Christ Chapel of Long Beach didn't. Instead, they gathered seven baskets of food that Thanksgiving to pass out to their fellow congregants, their friends, with the disease. Within months, the church was serving 75 to 100 afflicted clients free food every Saturday. The AIDS Food Store of Long Beach had begun. "In the early days, clients were only here for a few months, and they all died," Martinez said. "It was very very hard." Now, 25 years later, the store continues to provide free food twice a month for those living with HIV and AIDS and a safe place for them to mingle and talk with others. The store, located in the heart of a city with one of the highest incidents of AIDS in the state, is the longest-serving AIDS food provider in Southern California. Thanks to the advent of symptom-controlling medicine in recent years, many volunteers with the disease have been working for the store for more than a decade. From the beginning, the food store brought the church together, Martinez, the store's interim director, said. Almost everyone who came through the church doors on Sunday morning brought a bag of groceries with them. "Outside, it was not the same story," she said. "People were afraid… There was a real stigma attached to the food store." Martinez remembers when her first infected friend was hospitalized. "The nurses would not bring his food into the room. There had to be a friend there visiting him, or he didn't get his meal," she said. While many outside the church feared the disease, the food store continued to grow, accepting more and more clients each year. In the years before he first arrived at Christ Chapel, JaySun Howell had watched his best friend battle and eventually succumb to the disease, while his former partner was diagnosed the same year. Howell never contracted HIV. FACES & PLACES : COMMUNITY HERO WRITTEN BY CARLEY DRYDEN PHOTOGRAPHED BY HARTONO TAI MARGO MARTINEZ WITH VOLUNTEERS