Helping HIV Patients With Basic Needs

Sometimes, people ask Kathy Schack, volunteer coordinator for the Catalyst Foundation For AIDS Awareness and Care, how she can continue to do the work she does, after seeing so many people die whom she has helped.

“I look at it as helping them live while they are here, trying to make sure their basic needs are met,” said Schack, who started in May, 1993, as a volunteer with the group that serves people with AIDS in the Antelope Valley. The day after the Northridge earthquake, Schack was hired as one of the group’s paid employees.

Schack does most of her work at the agency’s office on Elm Avenue in Lancaster, but she also establishes an ongoing relationship with the clients.

“These people have dealt with so much negative,” Schack said. “They have been discriminated against and shunned not only by society, but sometimes by their own family members. Here, I accept them and they accept me.”

Many in politically conservative Lancaster do not even realize that AIDS is around them, Schack said.

“It’s funny, people will actually say, ‘You mean we have AIDS in the Antelope Valley?’ ” she said. “We kind of get a kick out of it sometimes.”

Although most of the foundation’s clients are gay men, Schack said, the fastest growing percentage of AIDS patients the agency serves are women and teen-agers.

On Saturday and Sunday, the Catalyst Foundation will hold a volunteer training program from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. at the Young People’s Institute for the Arts, at the corner of Date Avenue and Lancaster Boulevard in Lancaster. Often people who may not want to be volunteers, but just want to learn about the disease, show up.

The training prepares volunteers to work with the foundation’s buddy program in which they are matched up with a person who has AIDS to visit and help as needed. The training explains for volunteers what happens physically to AIDS patients as well as “the emotional roller coaster ride,” Schack said.

The foundation was established last year by Lancaster physician Susan Lawrence, when her husband was dying of AIDS. A unique part of the training session includes a panel discussion Sunday afternoon by people with acquired immune deficiency syndrome or HIV, who, Schack said, will “give a human face to the disease.”

People interested in volunteering or signing up for the training session can call Schack at (805) 948-8559.

L.A. Family Housing Corp, a nonprofit homeless organization is looking for volunteers to participate in the “Adopt-A-Family for the Holidays” project for more than 100 homeless or very low-income families living at the Valley Shelter in North Hollywood, other facilities or in temporary housing.

Volunteers would adopt a family and provide holiday gifts to the children and/or holiday food baskets to help the family prepare a holiday meal. For more information or to volunteer, call Allison Lee at (818) 982-4091.

The Salvation Army in Burbank is beginning its Angel Tree adoption program outside Mervyn’s department store at the Media City Center mall on Dec. 2.

Shoppers choose a paper angel ornament from the tree listing a name, age and a present being wished for. The gift purchased is returned to either the Angel Tree or the Salvation Army.

Burbank Adult School needs volunteers to answer phones and do filing and light typing one day a week or more from 9 a.m. to noon.

For more information call the Burbank Retired Seniors Volunteer Program at (818) 953-9503.

The Valley Storefront run by Jewish Family Services in North Hollywood needs a volunteer to plan and coordinate day trips for active seniors. For more information call Judy Raffel at (818) 984-1380.

Getting Involved is a weekly listing of volunteering opportunities. Please address prospective listings to Getting Involved, Los Angeles Times, 20000 Prairie St., Chatsworth, 91311. Or fax them to (818) 772-3338.