This Years' Theme: Luke 14:23,

"Go out into the highways and hedges, and compel them to come in.."

This project was developed to bring about an increased Awareness, a purposeful Mobilization, and more Testing for HIV in the Black Community. As the Black Church serves as the gatekeeper for the Black Community, we believe that it is vital that the Black Church spearheads this movement. We believe that by using one of the core elements of the Black Church, gospel music, to bridge the gap between the good news of the gospel, the social justice message of the gospel and the message of HIV education and prevention, we will be able to further prevent the spread of the disease in our community and ultimately, its elimination.

In order to arrest HIV infections and eventually eliminate this disease, we need the help of the Black Church . We need the Black Church , in its various forms, denominational differences, worship practices, and congregational sizes, to help aggressively spread the messages of HIV education, prevention, and testing.

We, the African American State of Emergency Task Force and the Determining Our Own Destiny Foundation, have produced a faith-based, inspiration Gospel CD which encourages Black people to test for HIV and if positive for HIV to get into care. We must make the decision to do HIV education and prevention with new and innovative methods to get the messages on the streets, and into the highways and hedges.

By engaging and energizing your community of Faith, you can earn much needed resources while spreading a life saving message! Please help us to promote and sell this inspirational Gospel CD and reach our goals to impact our communities.

Goals:

•  Mobilize Black Communities of Faith (Collaborate with 300 Communities/Congregations)

•  Raise Awareness in Communities (Reach 1 million individuals)

•  Encourage HIV Testing (Test 100 Thousand individuals)

We are asking that each partner group sell a minimum of 200 CDs. Each group that sells 200 CDs will receive a new group website with the following:

•  6 Pages (1 Page for Health & Wellness including HIV Education and AIDS Information)

•  Photo Gallery

•  10 email accounts

•  1 free month of hosting and maintenance