Wiregrass-Area Non-Profit Makes Social Advocacy a TOP Priority

By Kelly Tabor

Published: July 4, 2008
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Perhaps the strongest weapon in the fight against HIV/AIDS and the endless cycle of poverty is the grassroots effort to put a face on social issues. Advocates Larry Bryant and Pastor Kenneth Glasgow want that face seen on a national level.

“We offer supportive services, housing, medical, HIV services,” Glasgow said. “We always give 100 percent back to the neighborhoods.”

Glasgow and his team of volunteers run the T.O.P.S. organization (The Ordinary People Society), a faith-based non-profit that focuses on mentoring and monitoring at-risk youth and serving underprivileged residents of the South. The group has 18 branches in Alabama and has been recognized by advocates in the country’s capitol.

“We have a soup kitchen, Momma Tina’s Mission House, and we feed 150 people a day,” said Daris Johnson, a volunteer with TOPS.

Larry Bryant, of the Washington, D.C. non-profit group Housing Works, said there is an epidemic in the South where people are homeless and hungry, low-income, addicted to drugs, and incarcerated parents leave behind neglected children. When mixed together they brew a society of dependence that’s uneducated.

“Alabama is one of the states that is ineffective in reaching the population,” said Bryant, who has been HIV positive for 22 years. “We’ve seen the epidemic change and grow, but the way people down here are treated has stayed the same.”

Bryant said he and others have set up town hall meetings across the state in an effort to stop what he said is a stigma and fear that prevents the education of people.

He recalled the story of a Mobile-area mother who took her family to an RV park in Silver Hill last Fourth of July. Her 2-year-old adopted son swam in a pool with other kids as the parents sat and chatted. When she mentioned that her son happened to be HIV positive, the other parents panicked and pulled their children out of the pool. Outraged, people from across the country organized a “Swim-In” in protest.

“We’re defending our lives and we shouldn’t have to do that,” Bryant said. “If we don’t act, it’s like we’re just waiting for the next epidemic.”

Bryant has planned for a coalition to attend the first presidential debate in Oxford, Miss.

“We need to demand that the next president have a comprehensive national plan,” Bryant said. “People with influence can make the most change.”

While many states still oppose needle exchange programs, and push for abstinence-only teaching, Bryant is optimistic about the progress that can be made when people stop rationalizing that if it doesn’t affect them, it is not their problem.

“There are many communities where ‘just say no’ is not an option,” Bryant said. “We hope people don’t stop fighting.”