AIDS BATTLE GETS $150,000; PARTNERSHIP AWARDS GRANTS TO VENTURA COUNTY PREVENTION, CARE PROGRAMS.

Byline: Michael Coit Daily News Staff Writer

The Ventura County affiliate for the nation's largest private foundation supporting AIDS prevention and care has awarded grants totaling $150,000 to seven agencies and groups to support prevention programs and patient services.

In its first year, the Ventura County AIDS Partnership raised $75,000 locally to gain matching funds from the National AIDS Fund. The 1997 goal is raising $85,000 to gain more matching funds, said Art McDermott, the partnership's program manager.

``This is our very first round of grant awards and we are absolutely thrilled,'' McDermott said. ``As long as the National AIDS Fund is able to raise money, we will remain in business.''

The combined funding will provide a major boost for public and private agencies. The grant recipients were chosen based on the critical needs that are either not covered by existing programs or do not receive enough funding, McDermott said.

Half of the grant total went to three agencies that do outreach in the Latino community: El Concilio Del Condado de Ventura, Clinicas del Camino Real and the tri-counties Planned Parenthood office.

Targeting teen-agers, farm workers and sexually active adults, outreach in the Latino community is vital because there is a greater incidence of HIV and AIDS compared with the county's other ethnic groups, said Rigoberto Vargas, El Concilio's director of Youth and Health Programs.

``I think it's still taboo to talk about sexual issues in the Latino community, especially with AIDS,'' he explained.

``Our message is, anyone can be at risk. It just depends on your behavior,'' Vargas said. ``Without that (grant money), we wouldn't specifically have an HIV/AIDS program.''

AIDS Care Inc. received the greatest grant total with $55,000 for four programs. One is outreach to sexually active adults, one provides emotional support services, one is a food bank program, and one is for prevention programs through the Camarillo Health Care District.

AIDS Care has been a leading nonprofit organization providing social services to people with the HIV and AIDS since 1985.

An impartial allocation panel decided the grant amounts and recipients, who will be formally recognized during an evening program in Camarillo on May 21.

Also recognized will be the greatest donors, including The California Endowment, the Amgen Foundation, the Martin V. Smith Foundation, the Swift Memorial Health Care Foundation, the county's 1996 AIDS Walk, and Roche Laboratories, McDermott said.

The partnership is co-sponsored by the United Way of Ventura County and the Ventura County Community Foundation.

The partnership is one of 38 affiliated with the National AIDS Fund, but one of the first established outside of a major metropolitan area in an effort to help keep AIDS in check, McDermott said.

Acquired immune deficiency syndrome is the advanced stage of an affliction in which the human immunodeficiency virus attacks a body's immune system, leaving victims vulnerable to infections. Since the county began to compile records in 1983, a total of 658 AIDS cases have been reported and a total of 429 of those have resulted in death, according to the county Department of Public Health's surveillance program.

Priority areas for the partnership were based on the first assessment of prevention, treatment, education and social service programs in the county, which was completed in 1995.

McDermott noted that the first grants should go a long way because the applicants were conscious to avoid competing based on similar programs.

``The programs doing this work all know each other and are working cooperatively. So most of them met before submitting applications so they didn't duplicate services,'' he explained.

For more information about the partnership and for donations, phone [phone], Ext. 232.