The annual celebration of Pride Month provides an opportunity for reflection on our history of service to and alongside LGBTQIA+ community members in the food is medicine movement. Almost 40 years ago, at the height of the HIV/AIDS pandemic, the agencies of the Food Is Medicine Coalition (FIMC) created the medically tailored meal (MTM) intervention. At that time, there was no treatment for the virus and people, predominantly LGBTQIA+, were dying stigmatized, isolated and alone. Volunteers in communities responded, bringing nourishment and dignity to this desperate situation in the form of meals tailored to their nutritional needs and illness to help individuals remain as healthy as possible for as long as possible.
LGBTQIA+ communities were also foundational to providing the service – as some of the first volunteers, staff and board members that supported FIMC agencies. As the intervention has evolved in subsequent years, volunteers and staff have maintained a quality of service that delivers the MTM intervention with dignity for all, alongside strong relationships with LGBTQIA+ communities across the country, disproportionately impacted by continued healthcare inequity. This year, our ethic of care – inspired by a person-centered approach which has been foundational to our service for almost four decades – was formalized into the first ever medically tailored meal standard for the field. This standard puts clients at the center and acts as a guidebook to meeting community needs.
Pride is celebrated in June to honor the 1969 Stonewall Uprising in Manhattan, a pivotal moment for the Gay Liberation Movement across the United States. FIMC is proud of our strong history of listening to, supporting and uplifting our community. This June we celebrate our LGBTQIA+ staff, volunteers, clients, and community members nationwide, and reassert our commitment to equitable access to the lifesaving MTM intervention for all.
In 1991, when Charles Robbins returned to Denver from Los Angeles, he found that friends living with HIV/AIDS were wasting away before his eyes. He founded Project Angel Heart in response, modeling it after Project Angel Food, a Los Angeles organization where he had been a volunteer.
Open Hand Atlanta, originally called Project Open Hand, began in 1988 when Michael Edwards-Pruitt and a group of friends started cooking meals for their neighbors and loved ones who were affected by HIV/AIDS.
Project Angel Food is founded by Marianne Williamson, who is joined by David Kessler, Ed Rada, Howard Rosenman, Freddie Webber and dozens of volunteers to create a program preparing and delivering meals to people living with HIV/AIDS.
In 1985, a hospice worker named Ganga Stone paid a visit to an AIDS patient that changed her life. The patient, Richard Sale, was too ill to cook for himself. Ganga’s compassion took hold, a meal was prepared and delivered on the next visit, and an epiphany was born: Something as basic as delivering a meal could bring dignity and recognition to a desperate situation.