Blog by Brady S.

Saturday March 22nd, 2014

            Alright, so it is the end of the week and lots of people have already posted about their incredible experiences in NYC. I’ll try to give something new to the blog post. Coming into this week, I’ll admit that I was pretty nervous about sleeping on a church floor in Brooklyn for a week with a group of people I didn’t know too well. I predicted that the service would be fun, but no one could have told me how much of an impact it would have had on my life.  By reading the blog many of you have probably heard about the truly inspiring residents that we all had the pleasure of meeting. I felt so honored to listen to all the anecdotes, histories, and jokes of the residents. The new perspective I have on HIV/AIDS and life in general will stick with me long after this trip comes to a close.

            Something happened today that really made the trip come full circle. The morning was full of tourist activities starting in the wee hours of the morning when many of us were less than thrilled to be awake. The stuffed animals in F.A.O. Schwartz cheered us up very quickly. Then after some time looking through the exhibits at The Museum of the City of New York, it was time to split the group to visit two new service locations. I was picked to go to a church around Greenwich Village that serves dinner to people living with AIDS every Saturday night. Another great community of volunteers and clients who made you forget about the small struggles of every day life.

            Leaving the church, we walked right past The Stonewall Inn, one of the iconic locations for the gay rights movement in New York City. A father was standing out front with his two young daughters telling them that people can love whomever they want to love and that it is “one of the greatest things about this country.” He continued by telling them that he had lots of gay friends and that he wanted to bring them to this location as a way of teaching them about civil rights. WOW. I was speechless. This week had been difficult at times to think about how much progress needs to be made with regards to the AIDS stigma and crisis, but this was reassurance that the world is changing. These two young members of the future generation will be able to see the world in a new light. These types of changes occur in a vast range of social issues including HIV/AIDS and it took an incident like this to remind me of this fact.

            I can easily add this experience to one of the most memorable and life changing of my life. Thank you NYC ASB 2014!