TDS Valley Voice: AAP - Food Samaritans Offerings Growing

From The Desert Sun, Valley Voice - June 6, 2017

Mealtime is probably not a challenge to most of us in the Coachella Valley. But for some of our community, this can be a daily struggle. It’s difficult to imagine what it is like to try to get by on $18,090 a year (or less). Visualize trying to do that while living with a life-threatening illness. For many people, this is inconceivable. But for the clients of AAP – Food Samaritans, this is a struggle they face every day. To help out, each month AAP – Food Samaritans provides nutritional support to economically disadvantaged residents who live with a life-threatening illness.

For the first time in a very long while we are now able to move people off of our waiting list and begin to establish them as clients as well as accepting new clients. Since we do virtually no advertising, we are turning to the community to ask your help in spreading the word to potential clients who earn less than $18,090 per year and live with a life-threatening illness. If you know of someone who fits these guidelines, please urge them to contact us to see if they qualify for our nutritional support program.

All of our clients go through a qualification process, which includes income and residency verification and random testing for illegal drug use.

Some 26 years ago our organization was founded with the mission of helping the most at-risk members of the Greater Palm Springs community – people who are low-income and compromised by HIV/AIDS. The organization (then known as AIDS Assistance Program or AAP) was initiated by a small group of concerned citizens led by the late Gloria Greene and Jeannette Rockefeller. Gloria started small, by feeding desperate souls from the back door of her restaurant. It began as a grassroots community-based organization, and remains so today.

Building on the philosophy of our founders, in 2016 we announced our intention to expand our mission to serve others in the greater Palm Springs community who are living with serious illnesses such as cancer, MS, heart or liver disease, among others. As we expanded our services, we also subtly updated our organization name to “AAP – Food Samaritans” to reflect our evolving mission to ensure that everyone in our community facing chronic illness and food insecurity can continue to live their lives with dignity and self-respect. We were able to do this with the ongoing support of generous sponsors.

Each month we distribute food vouchers to our clients. We also enjoy a relationship with the Palm Springs Animal Shelter, which distributes pet food to our clients that have animal companions.

Since our inception, we have distributed more than $10 million in direct client service to approximately 2,300 clients. But our work is not over. We need your support now more than ever. Each and every day we receive calls from people in need.

We recently announced alliances with two other organizations. Under our alliance with Desert AIDS Project (D.A.P.) in which AAP will now lead the nutrition programs for both organizations. We also announced an alliance with ACT for MS where AAP will manage a nutritional support program for their clients. The details of this agreement will be announced soon.

These kind of alliances are what AAP - Food Samaritans is all about.

Mark Anton is the CEO/Executive Director of AIDS Assistance Program.  Email him at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..

View original TDS article HERE