Hey look everyone, it’s “Thri y” the Connec ons Bird who just loves to save you money! Thri y has been flying around town looking for businesses that offer discounts to Evergreen employees (that’s you) and here is his report. Club Shoppers: did you know that both Sam’s Club and BJ’s Wholesale Club offer discounts to Evergreen employees? You can get a Sam’s Club membership with 2 cards for $40, and a BJ’s membership for $20. Drivers: Dunn Tire offers a 5% discount on res and a 10% discount on alignment. People with Hair: Studio 806 offers Evergreen staff a 20% Discount on Hair/Spa Services. There are a few discounts available on cell phone plans. Verizon users get a 22% discount by
visi ng www.verizonwireless.com/getdiscount and using the account name: Evergreen Health Services. Sprint users can get a 19% discount by comple ng the form at sprint.com/verify. Use account Name: AIDS Community Services. AT&T users get a 20% discount by visi ng any retail center or call customer care at 1-800331-0500 to have the discount code 2485440 added to your account. T-Mobile users get a 15% discount. To ac vate a new line call 1-866-464-8662, op on 3. Men on promo onal code 6640TMOFAV. Or visit www.t-mobile.com/nyemployees. Exis ng customers can receive the 15% discount on monthly reoccurring charges for qualifying rate plans by calling 1-877453-8824 and men oning you are a NYS employee or promo code 6640TMOFAV.
CONTACT HR FOR MORE INFORMATION ON THESE GREAT MONEY SAVING DEALS!
Milestones Birthdays Dr. Evans – 9/5 Andre Stokes – 9/9 Michael Lee – 9/10 Bridget McClain – 9/10 Corinne Henderson – 9/11 Kim Lombard – 9/15 Thomas Place – 9/15 Dr. Gbadamosi – 9/16 Julie Vaughan – 9/17 Dana McKnight – 9/18 Shannon Bryant – 9/20 Jason Rein – 9/20 Jennifer DeMarsh – 9/22 Sheila Stephens – 9/25 Jorien Brock – 9/26 Alain Rodriguez – 9/29 Shaquan Beard – 9/30 Ricardo Nazario – 9/30
Anniversaries Krista Fenske – 1yr Aaron Pry – 1 yr Ashley Roberts – 1 yr Tracy Eichelberger – 2 yrs Seth Girod – 2 yrs Jennifer DeMarsh – 3 yrs Lindsay Zasada – 3 yrs Shari DeMarco – 5 yrs Dr. Gbadamosi – 8 yrs Keisha Leavy – 8 yrs Susan Fiedler – 9 yrs Gary Williams – 15 yrs Kim Lombard – 21 yrs
Your Con nued Dedica on and Hard Work Are No ced and Appreciated! - Management Team
History of Benedict House Editor's Note: Pathways asked James Sheehan for a guided tour of the history of Benedict House... so far. An expanded version of this story will appear in the upcoming Autumn issue of Pathways Magazine.
B
enedict House was founded in 1987 by the Rev. Vincent Crosby, a Benedictine priest and Buffalo native who had been working in AIDS ministry for three years. Father Vincent saw that in those dark days, people living with AIDS incurred staggering medical costs and often could not continue to work. They could quickly end up with no resources and nowhere to live. Realizing that one of the most critical needs for the future would be housing, both transitional and long term, Father Vincent purchased a small cottage on the west side of the city with private funds, and then a second one which served as the headquarters for Benedict House until 1995, when the current facility, at 2211 Main Street, a former Merchant Marine Hospital, was purchased from Sisters Hospital and completely rehabbed into the beautiful space we now inhabit. With room for 34 residents, all of whom have their own rooms, Benedict House provides comfort and security for up to 34 men and women living with HIV/AIDS who would otherwise be homeless. All meals and personal needs are provided for with funding from state and federal agencies as well as the generous donations of groups and individuals who have recognized the value of our mission and the importance of providing a home for so many vulnerable and often marginalized individuals. Since 1995, the face of the virus has changed dramatically. In its early years, the House provided hospice-like services for people who came here to die. Since the development of new drugs and medical protocols, the needs of the people living with the virus have evolved as well. While our mission is still to serve homeless individuals who
have tested positive for HIV/AIDS, we also provide a first rate program of counseling, education and an experience of community which has often been missing from their lives. Our trained staff provides counseling and other supports including substance abuse, art therapy, meditation and other groups. Nursing services are provided along with outside programs designed to assist those living with addiction or mental health issues. While we provide these services for as long as they are needed, our hope for each resident is that they will be able to move back into their communities, armed with the skills they need to support themselves, to establish healthy relationships and to manage their illness appropriately. In June of 2013, the Director of Benedict House started a conversation with the management team at Evergreen Health Services which resulted in the establishment of a formal affiliation between the two agencies. This conversation followed a time in which funding for HIV/AIDS decreased dramatically, challenging us to seek collaborative relationships which would sustain our work financially while also expanding the menu of services we could offer. With missions that are so similar, the connection with Evergreen is a natural and good fit. Our experience providing housing for the ill and homeless and Evergreen’s commitment to work for and with the economic and socially marginalized in our city have already created a synergy which will open up new doors for both of us. This is an exciting time for us at Benedict House. In our third decade, we continue to address the real needs of the people who come to us for assistance and support. Working side by side with Evergreen gives us all the ability to continue the necessary work we do, well into the future. C
You’ll know us by our awesome haircuts, by our nerdy glasses, and by our eagerness to help. I’m talking of course about the IT Department. The IT Department is here to assist you with day to day information technology issues, media requests and troubleshooting. We can help you figure out how to mail merge, how to diagnose internet connection problems, or how to troubleshoot that darn copier (again), and now we have an even easier way for you to get help! We will soon be implementing a ticketing system to inform us of any computer issues you may be having, and to log them for reference of potential issues in the future. This
will help us keep track of what is happening amongst all the computers in the agency, as well as make it easier to contact us and for you to keep track of the solution to your problem. We’ll be using a website based messaging system, in which you can log your problem into a form describing your situation, and we will be immediately notified that there is an issue. You will be provided with a website link in the near future, and we’ll give you more information about it when the change takes place within the next couple of months. One of the biggest challenges of this system, when reporting your day-to-day computer issues is the use of concise language. Computers run on a very specific order of operations. Often times something, or some action may disrupt the order and cause the computer to not work properly or to stop working altogether. This leads to situations where a seemingly insignificant piece of information becomes the golden key to solving the problem. Was a button pressed right before the issue arose? Did you get an error message? If you can let us know what has happened leading up to the issue, we may have a better understanding of how to fix it. Computers run on information. Fixing computers also runs on information. Letting us know you are having an issue is a good start, but giving us all the information we need will result in finding a quicker solution for you. There is a difference between, “My computer stopped working,” and “My computer restarted and is now showing a blue screen with a message on it.” Or “I’m receiving an error message that reads: Error 654 (0x28E)…” The first statement does get right to the heart of the problem, but the latter two statements give us enough information to begin thinking of solutions before we even see your machine. If you are able to give us more information, like what was happening before the issue arose, we can get even farther with our solution before we even get to you! Were you on-line? What programs were running at the time? Did something out of the ordinary happen that lead up to this? Please keep in mind that we are not asking you to diagnose and treat your computer yourself. There is no need to get into the nitty-gritty or use full-on Star Wars lingo and say, “The flux capacitor on my motherboard needs a new turbo!” Just a few details about what is going on will suffice.
Having all of those little bits of information can help us create a full picture of the issue, and can help you get back to providing quality care for our clients. - Brendan Orrange The blue screen of death! The IT Department’s archnemesis. And YOUR arch-nemesis too, if you haven’t backed up your files correctly. Sometimes computers can become corrupted and malfunction, which in turn can put your files or your entire computer out of commission for a period of time. A virus can enter your computer through an email attachment, through software downloads, or by visiting websites with questionable content. If a virus gets a hold of your machine, it can corrupt your important files and render them useless. This includes working copies of forms, spreadsheets of your complete client lists or even root files on your computer that make up the Windows operating system. As some of you already know, this can cause frustration when your files are corrupt, are no longer accessible, or when Windows isn’t working properly. It can cause you to lose days or weeks worth of work that is sometimes irreplaceable. This is where the importance of backing up your work comes in. Your H: drive is a separate “hard drive” that’s set up on our network just for YOU! Each employee of EHS, CAS and Pride Center has their own separate H: drive that you should be using as a secondary drive to save backups of all your work. If a virus corrupts your computer and Windows no longer runs properly, the IT department might have to erase your entire hard drive and start over from scratch – which includes wiping out the Windows operating system, and all of the files that you’ve stored on your hard drive (in most cases your C: drive), and then reinstalling Windows. BUT, if you’ve saved all of your files that you store on your hard drive (C: -- which includes your Desktop and Documents folders) to your H: drive as well, then its as simple as copying and pasting files from your H: drive back to your newly cleaned and virus free hard drive (C:). If you’d like a hands-on tutorial on how the H: drive works, and how it can benefit you in case of a corrupted hard drive, feel free to email either Lindsay (lzasada@evergreenhs.org) or Brendan (borrange@evergreenhs.org) and we’ll be happy to come show you what you’ve been missing! - Lindsay Zasada C
FUN FACTS Special Hollywood EdiƟon 1 The term “movies” did not originally mean films, but was
a derogatory term for people who made them, used with disdain by locals who disliked the “invading” foreigners. 2 The highest grossing movie to never reach #1 on the
weekly box office chart is My Big Fat Greek Wedding, which brought in a total of $241 million. 3 1945’s To Have and Have Not featured a Nobel Prize
winning author (Ernest Hemingway) adapted for the screen by another Nobel winner (William Faulkner). 4 The Muppet Movie was cut by New Zealand
Censors on grounds of gratuitous violence. Sweden banned E.T. for children under 11 because the film showed parents being hos le to their children. 5 Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho was the first movie to
show a toilet flushing. 6 The Departed has more uses of “the F word” and its
deriva ves (237) than any other Best Picture winner. 7 Daniel Radcliffe went through a total of 160 pairs of
prop glasses by the end of the Harry Po er series.
connections SEPTEMBER 2013
PUBLISHER/LAYOUT John Carocci EDITOR Kimberly Harding CONTRIBUTORS Sheila Marcheson Brendan Orrange Lindsay Zasada Andy Kiener Patrick Butler Matthew John Pasquarella James Sheehan Nicole Coonly Shari Demarco
Matthew John Pasquarella and Art Representative James Bower at the opening reception for Matthew John’s Colorful Liaisons exhibit in Miami. Check out the gallery’s website at artfusiongallery.com, which features links highlighting the show, footage of the opening reception (under upcoming events), and even a virtual tour of the entire exhibition.
ConnecƟons Poll
THIS MONTH’S QUESTION SUBMIT TED BY PATRICK BUTLER
“would you rather live one conƟnuous life of 1,000 years, or 10 separate lives of 100 years, starƟng over each Ɵme?” 6 say 1,000 CONTINUOUS YEARS
10 say 10 SEPARATE LIVES
For my dream vacation, I would drag my husband hiking/
ily, and my in-laws on a weeklong African Safari. - Maisha
backpacking with me through the United States (at least at
Drayton My sister-in-law’s grandparents live in a tiny town
first) and live off of the land, camping wherever we found
(maybe 150 people) in the mountains of Southern Italy.
a spot. I want to hike in the most beautiful places in the
It’s ridiculously beautiful. They go out every morning and
country, Survivor Man style. No cars and no technology,
look down on the sea, and pick figs for breakfast, and think
except for maybe a camera to take pictures of our adven-
about how they’ll spend the day. My brother hates going
tures. -Ashlee Rudolph I would go to Greece with my entire
because he’s cheap and they don’t have any of his favorite
family and boyfriend. - Mindi Mietlicki If I could go on a
cereals. My dream vacation would be to spend a couple of
dream vacation it would be to Paris! I would take my BFF
weeks in town, sipping Pellegrino under a canopy, watch-
Nicole with me. - Michele Ogden I would take my husband,
ing people, taking photos, maybe borrowing a Fiat and
my 2 sons, my parents, siblings, Cathy Alvarez and fam-
exploring Rome. I’ll bring my own cereal. - John Carocci
C WE DUN GOOFED! Last month’s issue of Connec ons should have included Maisha Drayton’s anniversary with the agency. But it didn’t. Congratula ons Maisha, and our sincere apologies for the mistake! Consequences will never be the same.
Connections Asked What Changes Have Had the Biggest Impact on the Agency? There is a three-way tie for the changes I believe have had the most impact: 1) Opening our primary care center – when it opened in November of 1996 people living with HIV in Western New York finally had another choice for their health care. It was a very exciting time to open our practice because protease inhibitors, the first effective treatment for HIV, had just become available. We were treating people who were very sick and watching them “recover” from HIV and AIDS related illnesses. Our role as a primary care provider and not just a human services organization also gives us a voice at the health care reform table. 2) Opening our pharmacy –this has not only improved access to treatment and treatment adherence for our patients; it has also provided a significant revenue stream for our organization. 3) Opening our Wellness Center – it’s hard to remember life before the Wellness Center! Until January of 2010, there were lots and lots of people constantly hanging around our campus waiting for appointments or groups with nothing to do. The Wellness Center has changed all of that by providing structured activities, a safe place for people to socialize and a nutritious meal. It is also a key component in our strategy to engage and retain people in our health and supportive programs. That’s my 3 cents!! - Kate Gallivan
Evergreen has always had VISION. It seems like we have, in theory, always been decades in front of other health organizations. However, working on a shoe string uncertain budget seemed to always clip our wings. The change with the most impact I’ve seen in the 9 years I’ve been employed here is… wait for it... the pharmacy. The Pharmacy@Evergreen has brought more than simply financial stability. It has allowed us FREEDOM. We know what our people need, and now we are free to serve them in the most effective and innovative ways imaginable. - Maisha Drayton