This HIV Long-Term Survivor Day, listen to this leader from God's Love We Deliver

The Vice Chair starts off the video saying that the Stonewall Riots of 1969 was a wake-up call for gay life and leading up to the HIV/AIDS epidemic in the 1980s, he felt something shift in the queer community. Sennott says he went to a fundraising party with a group of friends in a car, and Larry Kramer was on a microphone telling people that people are dying from this disease ravaging the community. "That was the first time I was aware that something was wrong, and it was in our community," he said in the video. "I'm the only person alive who drove back in that car."

Sennott goes on to say that everyone else who went to that party died within four years. Nobody was prepared to deal with the impact that this virus would have on the community, but he says that what emerged from this devastation was a response to take care of one another. "I was caring for my neighbor, my lover, somebody at work," he says in the video. "For the first time, I think it was the first time, I think it was individuals taking responsibility for other individuals and strangers." Sennott continues and says that one thing the AIDS epidemic and the COVID-19 pandemic taught the world is that there's a need for total care. "You need nutrition, you need housing, you need legal advice, you need all the rest of it to get through," and that's what God's Love We Deliver provides.

"The spirit of compassion gets tapped into in crisis, and I think it was the AIDS pandemic, and I think we can continue to demonstrate the importance of compassion."