“For Love or Money”

Commemorates World AIDS Day

Teen Canteen’s County Office of AIDS-Funded HIV Education Program Provides BBQ
& Prevention Awareness

(Hollywood)--In an effort to promote World AIDS Day, Teen Canteen and "For Love or Money" hosted a successful barbeque for over 30 clients, staff, and visitors who played games to increase their awareness about HIV/AIDS and other STDs and listened to music provided by radio station KJLH 102.3 FM.

    The last couple of months have been very busy and very exciting for For Love or Money.  Through our participation in Macy's Passport-In-Store 2000, we raised over $500 in ticket sales to benefit the program’s services and materials.

   My three Peer Educators and I conducted an informative and successful three-day Peer Educator Training which included Teen Canteen clients and other peer educators from the Hollywood Homeless Youth Partnership agencies.  During the training, we discussed HIV, other STDs, and risk behaviors associated with transmission, as well as the role of a Peer Educator and the skills that he/she may need to be effective, such as communication skills, presentation skills, and sensitivity to others from different cultures, backgrounds, and sexual orientation.  All of the participants made a short presentation to the group and benefited from the information.  I was happy to learn of an average increase in score (29.5%) between the group’s pretests and posttests.

   The Office of AIDS Programs and Policy has renewed its funding of For Love or Money, and the new program year begins January 1, 2001.  We have been working hard to update and revise the current workshop curriculum.  This revised curriculum will have a variety of workshops addressing HIV/AIDS and other STDs, drugs and alcohol, conflict resolution and violence prevention, relationship issues, self-esteem, communication and negotiation skills, and sensitivity issues.  Moreover, program staff have been invited to present workshops at Covenant House-California and Options House, on a regular basis, and have reached about 100 residents of those programs since the beginning of June.

   We have also forged full speed ahead with street outreach in the Hollywood and Santa Monica areas, as well as having visited local squats (when invited), reaching over 25 homeless youths per month, providing snacks, hygiene kits, condoms, & bleach kits, with many of those young people returning to Teen Canteen to receive extended services.

--Laura Kassebaum, Program Coordinator, 
                    For Love Or Money