Local
D.C. group provides HIV testing in tent
Pop-up facility targeting grocery stores, Metro stops
One Tent Health has been offering free “pop-up” HIV testing in neighborhoods across D.C. (Washington Blade photo by Michael Key)
For the past year, a D.C.-based nonprofit organization called One Tent Health has been offering free “pop-up” HIV testing in neighborhoods across the city in a canvas tent that its mostly volunteer workers set up in parking lots of grocery and convenience stores.
The group’s CEO and co-founder, MacKenzie Copley, has said he and its other co-founder, David Schaffer, who serves as policy director, set out to provide HIV testing on weekends to enable a its large team of student volunteers to carry out the testing at a fraction of the cost of using a van or other specialized vehicle.
“We partner with local grocery and convenience stores, bring a 10 foot by 10 foot canvas tent directly into high risk areas of the city and, with over 300 undergraduate volunteers, provide screening in 15 minutes or less,” Copley told the Washington Blade.
“We’ll have over 600 volunteers within the next three weeks and we even just partnered with Grindr, who’s going to let all of its D.C. users know where we’ll be each weekend,” Copley said in a Sept. 10 email to the Blade. “To boot, everyone in our organization is 26 or younger,” he said.
Michael Kharfen, director of the D.C. HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis, STD, and Tuberculosis Administration, known as HAHSTA, said his office provides One Tent Health with HIV test kits and helps train the group’s volunteers on how to perform the tests and counsel people who get tested.
On its website, One Tent Health says it also provides those who stop by its tent with information about the HIV prevention medication known as PrEP. It says it also has a partnership with Whitman-Walker Health, the city’s largest private health care organization that provides HIV-related treatment and services, including access to PrEP.
Kharfen said that similar to all HIV testing centers that use the rapid oral HIV test, those who test positive at One Tent Health are referred to another facility where they receive a confirmatory HIV blood test. Whitman-Walker is among the health centers that provides confirmatory tests.
“Having launched HIV screening in October 2017, One Tent Health hopes to provide HIV screening to at least 4,000 of Washington, D.C.’s most at-risk residents in 2018 by the District’s Metro stops, parks, grocery stores, homeless shelters, and community centers,” the group says on its website.
The Comings & Goings column is about sharing the professional successes of our community. We want to recognize those landing new jobs, new clients for their business, joining boards of organizations and other achievements. Please share your successes with us at [email protected].
The Comings & Goings column also invites LGBTQ college students to share their successes with us. If you have been elected to a student government position, gotten an exciting internship, or are graduating and beginning your career with a great job, let us know so we can share your success.
Congratulations to Yadiel Meléndez, on their new role as Community Associate, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Meléndez is piloting a new role as a Community Associate at the Wanda Alston Foundation, where they support queer and trans young people in finding their footing, building independence, and experiencing a housing community where they are seen, valued, and affirmed. They are coming into this role with more than a decade of experience as a community organizer and operations specialist, supporting diverse communities through service, advocacy, and program coordination.
Previously they worked for Right Proper Brewing Shaw as a server and bartender and at Sephora, Washington, DC, and at FreshFarm, DC, in bilingual food access. They also worked freelance to build foundational structures for local queer BIPOC performance art coalitions, producing variety shows to curate space for marginalized performance artists in the community. They were a production manager for Haus of Hart Productions, a BIPOC centric performance art production. They also worked as field staff with the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention in Stafford, Va.
Meléndez is bilingual, Spanish and English. Their work is guided by a commitment to dignity, safety, and trauma-informed engagement, particularly within LGBTQ and BIPOC communities.
Congratulations also to Ben Rosen LICSW, on his new role as program director, with the Wanda Alston Foundation. Rosen previously worked with Fountain House’s OnRamps program, helping to build a new, innovative outreach program for individuals considered chronically homeless, and living with serious mental illness, in the Times Square area of New York. Rosen is a Psychotherapist, having worked with SG Psychotherapy, and as the psychotherapist with the Nest Community Health Center (URAM).
Rosen has a B.F.A. in Theatre Arts: Musical Theatre, Minor in Psychology (Cum Laude) from Malloy University Conservatory; and his M.S.W. in Clinical Practice with Individuals, Families, and Groups, from The Silberman School of Social Work, Hunter College, N.Y. He is independently licensed in New York and Washington, D.C.
Rehoboth Beach
BLUF leather social set for April 10 in Rehoboth
Attendees encouraged to wear appropriate gear
Diego’s in Rehoboth Beach hosts a monthly leather happy hour. April’s edition is scheduled for Friday, April 10, 5-7 p.m. Attendees are encouraged to wear appropriate gear. The event is billed as an official event of BLUF, the free community group for men interested in leather. After happy hour, the attendees are encouraged to reconvene at Local Bootlegging Company for dinner, which allows cigar smoking. There’s no cover charge for either event.
District of Columbia
Celebrations of life planned for Sean Bartel
Two memorial events scheduled in D.C.
Two celebrations of life are planned for Sean Christopher Bartel, 48, who was found deceased on a hiking trail in Argentina on or around March 15. Bartel began his career as a television news reporter and news anchor at stations in Louisville, Ky., and Evansville, Ind., before serving as Senior Video Producer for the D.C.-based International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers union from 2013 to 2024.
A memorial gathering is planned for Friday, April 10, 11:30 a.m.-1:30 p.m. at the IBEW International Office (900 7th St., N.W.), according to a statement by the DC Gay Flag Football League, where Bartel was a longtime member. A celebration of life is planned that same evening, 6-8 p.m. at Trade (1410 14th St., N.W.).
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