Tanya Shaw; AIDS Patient Found Home for Her Girls

Tanya Shaw, a 26-year-old AIDS patient whose struggle last year to find adoptive parents for her children inspired an outpouring of support, died this week at the Carl Bean AIDS Care Center.

The Los Angeles woman’s plight and her dream of creating a foundation to enable parents with AIDS to find adoptive parents for their children were the subject of a series of reports in The Times’ View section starting in April and triggered hundreds of calls offering assistance.

Two days before her death Tuesday, her friend Monte Hallis said, Shaw learned that supporters will attempt to carry out the plan through a nascent group called Tanya’s Children. The group, which has filed for tax-exempt status, intends to provide alternative adoption referral for terminally ill parents, Hallis said.

Sylvia Drew Ivy, executive director of T.H.E. Clinic for Women, said Shaw will be missed in efforts to educate other women about the growing risk of HIV infection. Shaw discussed safer sex practices in Magic Johnson’s “Time Out,” an educational video produced by Johnson and entertainer Arsenio Hall.

“She just had a great deal of passion. She helped all of us understand what it was to be a woman with AIDS, and we’ll always be grateful for that,” Ivie said. Among more than 100 women with HIV who have participated in the clinic’s early intervention program, Shaw is the third to die.

Although various agencies and individuals initially rallied to Shaw’s vision of establishing an adoption program for the children of AIDS patients, the plans collapsed. Shaw did succeed in placing her daughters Destini, 8, and Chassidy, 3, with adoptive parents. With Shaw’s condition worsening, she retreated from the public spotlight last fall. She entered the Bean AIDS hospice in early January. Her mother, Jane Hampton, said she is attempting to raise money to pay for Shaw’s funeral. Services are scheduled Tuesday at Solomon’s Mortuary, 10625 S. Broadway, Los Angeles.