The following email arrived in our inbox from the National AIDS Memorial, and we want to amplify the request for volunteers. (For the backstory, see our November article “AIDS Memorial Quilt—All 50,000 Panels—Is Moving to a New Home,” which explains that the National AIDS Memorial in the San Francisco Bay Area is the quilt’s new caretaker.)

Panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt will be transported to a warehouse near the Oakland Airport.Courtesy of the National AIDS Memorial

Dear Friends,

We are still very much in need of strong, able-bodied and energetic volunteers to help unload and shelve the AIDS Memorial Quilt in our new warehouse space. Volunteers will need to be able to carry and lift sections of panels weighing between 15 - 20 pounds each. The first truck arrives this Friday, and we will be unloading and shelving Friday through Sunday. Please sign up if you are able.

There are three big trucks coming over the next three weeks and we will have teams of four volunteers doing two shifts each day that trucks are scheduled to arrive.

The dates:  2/14, 2/15, 2/16, 2/18, 2/19, 2/20, 2/21, 2/22, 2/23

The shifts: 10am – 2pm & 1pm – 5pm

This will be at our warehouse by the Oakland Airport, very easy to get to via BART. We can pick you up at the Oakland Coliseum BART station (details upon confirmation). If this sounds like something you (and maybe co-workers, friends, family) are interested in, please email Kelly Rivera Hart at angelhart47@gmail.com for more information and to sign up.

This is the first of many exciting volunteer opportunities with the AIDS Memorial Quilt and its return to SF, under the care of the National AIDS Memorial. We hope you can be a part of history in welcoming it back to its new permanent home!

Thank you!