TUSTIN : Helping Kids in Families Hit by AIDS

Tom Lyons is 39 years old and single, but, friends say, he probably spends too much time collecting diapers.

He lives by the beach in San Clemente and drives to work in a Mercedes-Benz, but for the past two years, as head of Kids Connection Inc., he has been up to his ears in baby lotion, shampoo, cribs, formula and children’s clothes.

In his Tustin office, shelves upon shelves of the baby items are stacked, ready for delivery to families in which someone has AIDS or HIV.

Kids Connection Inc. is the only nonprofit group in Orange County that devotes itself exclusively to helping families cope with the devastating disease by providing them with basic necessities such as diapers, baby food and clothing.

“This is a very expensive disease,” said Lyons, a Boston native who has been involved in AIDS programs for at least five of the 19 years that he has lived in Orange County. “I’ve seen friends go from living in mansions to dying dirt poor.”

While the disease afflicts people of all economic groups, it’s particularly devastating to the poor, who make up a majority of the group’s clients, Lyons said.

In helping clients, the group works with such agencies as the AIDS Service Foundation, Children’s Hospital of Orange County and UC Irvine HIV Pediatric Services. His group seeks donations of baby food, clothes and other needs and delivers them to the affected families.

“We’re like a middleman,” Lyons said. “The agencies provide us with what the families need, and we go out and find (the items). We’re quick, we’re fast, because there is no red tape involved.”

For Christmas, Kids Connection distributed gift baskets to 217 children from 57 families, he said. In addition to the usual baby items, the baskets contained food and toys for the stricken children and their siblings.

“Each child received two or three gifts,” said David I. Armendariz, director of volunteer services of AIDS Services Foundation, which provided the list of families. “It was a huge job.”

Armendariz said that each family had a “wish list,” and Kids Connection volunteers tried to provide everything that was on the list, he said.

The number of children infected with AIDS is growing in Orange County, according to the Orange County Health Care Agency, which tracks AIDS cases. As of November, there have been 21 reported cases. Nine children have died.

In more than half of the cases--13--the disease was transmitted by the child’s mother, according to Cathy Higgins, a research analyst with the Health Care Agency. Because of the increasing number of women infected with AIDS or carrying the AIDS virus, more children are likely to get the disease, she said.

Higgins said that the health agency estimates that there are about 66 AIDS- and HIV-infected children in the county, including unreported cases.

Lyons said that one of his group’s goals is to educate the public that AIDS is not just a “gay disease” but also strikes children. There are still people who believe that the disease is the fault of the infected, he said.

But, for the most part, attitudes about the disease have changed, and many people want to do something, Lyons said.

“People want to get involved, they just don’t know how,” he said. “We have to provide them with a vehicle. It’s the most we can do.”