Shout Outs
Funding Successes and Thank Yous
RON TUZON'S MATCHING GIFT HELPED PROPEL FUNDRAISING IN 2017
The Urine Cup in the Scott-O Room keeps members posted on our fundraising progress throughout the year
This year, the Funding Section raised over $18,000 through our annual Winter Fundraising Blitz. Thanks to Ron Tuzon from the GMHC for putting forward funds as part of a matching gift to foster larger contributions.
Funding and GMHC heard in February that they secured a $50,000 grant and pledge of in-kind support from the AIDS Healthcare Foundation (AHF) to offset this year’s program costs for HIV testing and linkage to care, and STI testing and treatment. The grant includes support for outreach to men who have sex with men (MSM) and others at highest risk for HIV, and California State HIV test counselor certification trainings that will be open to members of all sections that provide HIV testing. This is the second AHF grant for our work in health services for MSM.
Dental Volunteers, Kevin, Michelle, Jessica, yoona, and rohen are all smiles with Oral Health Foundation donation
Congrats to Dental for securing a $10,000 grant from the Oral Health Foundation to help cover the some costs of our dental lab work! You might be asking yourself, “What is a dental lab?”. A dental lab is the outside service that manufactures the custom made, life-like replacement teeth and portions of teeth used to repair a tooth or fill in for natural teeth that can’t be saved. You know: crowns, bridges, and dentures. Smiles all around for the good work - especially to Michelle, Melodie, Do, Lidia, who wrote the grant request and Michael and Brian for writing letters to support the application!
volunteers from a mix of sections, including Shrey, Carissa, Todd, and Keith, ran for the clinic
R TO L: sean, GAry (LAB), AND KYLE (LAB).
KYLE has organized the BFC RUNS Berkeley Half Marathon fundraiser for several years
Great job BFC Runners for raising over $10,000 in the annual BFC Runs Berkeley as part of the Berkeley Half Marathon. Special thanks to Kyle from Lab Section for organizing! Runners/fundraisers included Kyle, Gary, and Edgardo from Lab; Hunter from Funding and Medical; Donna from Medical; Carissa from SSS; Keith, Todd, Shrey and Sean from GMHC; and Natasha and Ellysha.
Thank you to Jane Maxwell from the Board and Phleb for putting together the end of year fundraiser dinner at Britt-Marie’s restaurant and wine bar in Albany and the the BFC friends and volunteers who came to be a part of it.
In-Kind Donations
We want to send out a quick thank you to the BFC volunteers who helped us get the trove of medical supply and used office equipment treasures we picked up from the now shuttered Family Planning Specialist’s Clinic in Oakland over the Thanksgiving break.
The three car loads of donated medical supplies contained things such as: more than a case of bottles of hand sanitizer for use in exam rooms and outreach, poly lined drapes for covering work surfaces during blood draws and dental exams, sheets used by Saturday Services to make the exam tables more comfortable, a case of exam table paper, small tubes for holding liquids such as acids needed in wart treatment, educational reproductive health models for trainings and client education.
The truck hauling the donated office supplies and equipment highlighted by: two exam room stools, a tall chair for use at the microscope, a large bright water color painting for a counseling room, a desk top printer we hope will replace Dental’s failing printer, and a full sized office copy machine, now stationed by the pharmacy, that should be less jam-prone than our copier in the IRC. We’ve repaired our broken phones in Dental and the Scott-O Commons with equipment we picked up.
Thank you to Rowan from Saturday Services for making the connection for us to get the in kind donation!
Thanks to Sally from our Certified Enrollment Counselor’s program, Jasmine from HepTEV, Chelsea from Saturday Services, Alvin from Lab, and John from GMHC for helping select and pick up the supplies on our first day.
Thank you to Raj from IRC, Robert and Finn from HPS, Joey from NEED, and David and John from GMHC for helping get the second day’s load picked up and transported - especially for helping move that VERY heavy copier! And Robert thank you for being so generous with your family’s truck!
If anybody involved with the BFC has ideas of in kind donations of goods or services that BFC could take advantage of please let us know!