Dear Editor:

December 1 was World AIDS Day! I can remember at the start of AIDS here. Many of my friends contracted it. I remember, too, when my friend Joe Eisenhauer started a fund of a few dollars and I joined in to help. I initially put out a few canisters in the bars [the beginning of Lenny's Jars in Bars & Businesses project] and finally many retail and grocery stores accepted them on their counters. My dear friend, Carol Sterling, [former Executive Director of Chicken Soup Brigade] played a big part. It was a chore to maintain all the canisters. At one point, I got a DUI, and my friend Dee drove me around to the many locations. People were very generous and over the years we raised nearly $500,000. I dunno; my memory may be exaggerating. [EDITOR'S NOTE: No, Lenny is not exaggerating.] It was a long time ago, and I was much younger LOL and able to drive or walk the streets. Chicken Soup Brigade, the organization that began the food drive, provided drivers and delivered foods, is now in a pretentious building, but it continues to prepare and deliver food and now to other disadvantaged people as well. Ah!! the memories from the start with Joe Eisenhauer, Carol Sterling, and many others that made the organization what it is today.

In memory,
Lenny Larson

For an 'AIDS Retrospective Slideshow: A Pictorial Timeline of the HIV/AIDS Pandemic' visit: http://www.webmd.com/hiv-aids/ss/slideshow-aids-retrospective?ecd=wnl_day_120114&ctr=wnl-day-120114_nsl-ld-stry&mb=sUjWX710ogcESrWfQZS7P2dEpmNqbUHLUXO%2fkIXyI40%3

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