May 2008

2007 was our best year ever. We continued to fund several of our long term "partners"—Cornell University, Aids Service Center, University Settlement and the One Hour Swim. All of these organizations are highlighted on our web site and we urge you to visit them. We also funded three new organizations—The National Association of People with Aids (NAPWA), Village Care and AmeriKids. These new grant recipients all fit our collaboration model. For example:

1. NAPWA's Executive Director is Frank Oldham, a long time friend who is a board member of Village Care and has been instrumental in building awareness for the AIDS epidemic throughout the United States;

2. Village Care has a history of collaborations and their key people are first rate. We have added their organization to our grant page web site;

3. AmeriKids is a summer camp for children who live with or are personally afflicted with AIDS. Our grant funded training for their summer counselors. During the summer of 2007, they accepted as a camper a child of an employee of Aids Service Center;

4. We added the Empire Aids Ride onto our web site. Marty Rosen is one of the most dynamic leaders that I have met in the non-profit world. We have discussed several collaboration opportunities. One of her 2007 riders, Tracy Dougherty, was featured in "POZ" Magazine, a widely circulated publication that highlights AIDS issues. POZ has worked closely with NAPWA in recent years, and I have also become friendly with the hard working, sophisticated people that run the magazine;

5. We continue to add new fellows at Cornell. In 2007 we had our first repeat fellow, Scott Morgenson, and attracted Stephanie Snider, a student of Richard Meyer, a former Zwickler fellow. Through 2007, we have funded 18 fellows that have worked on a wide variety of topics. We are now seeing the fruits of their labor as Richard Jung, a 2005 Cornell fellow, published a book called Trans Gender Rights. Many of the fellows have written letters to us, which we have published on our site. I had lunch with Tim Retzloff, a 2005 winner, whose life story is a tribute to perservance.

We again wish to thank Deborah Chow for her great work on our website and Camille Nathoo, my assistant, for helping Caren and I keep the foundation running. I also wish to mention the fine work of the "behind the scene" individuals at the organizations which we fund. They all deserve a "pat on the back".

Although it is only mid-year, we have already made commitments and or donated more money than all of 2007. We are confident in our grantees, and realize that the needs for funding remain urgent.

As usual, if anyone has new funding or collaboration suggestions please contact us.

Very truly yours,

Allen Zwickler
Trustee
Phil Zwickler Charitable & Memorial Foundation Trust