Kengi Carr May 2010

It is with great honor we name Kengi Carr as our Dab the AIDS Bear's Angel for May 2010.

Kengi grew up in the beautiful bay side city of Santa Monica, it is a much different place from what he remembers as a kid. It was a sleepy, kind, gentle town where people knew each other and families had been there forever. Kengi loved growing up there. Other then being sick from his Sickle Cell he had a great childhood. Kengi was a cub scout and also played football and baseball. He liked to ride my bike and when they would go over to Grandmother's and Grandpa's house they would ride our skateboards. Rip City Skates was the place where we got all our skateboard gear. Kengi started racing BMX dirt bikes with my cousins and later grew into racing road bike and then mountain bikes. Growing up in Santa Monica was awesome. Even though Santa Monica is no longer the place he recalls and all culture his been replaced with “GAP” like things, Santa Monica will always hold a special place in his heart.

Kengi's community work started at a very young age. He was in 5th grade the first time he raised his voice to speak out against something he felt was wrong. Prop. 13 was about to gut programs that allowed 6th graders in Santa Monica to go on a camping trip as part of graduation. Kengi spoke before the Santa Monica~Malibu Board of Education. He spoke before them 6 times while he was in school in Santa Monica.

Kengi have always be involved in community work in some form, long before he ever started the work he does now. Back then the word “community” had a different meaning then it does today. It meant where you lived, not who you were. The work he does now was created while Kengi was homeless, he created it to raise awareness and try to get people to care about homeless people. Kengi never thought homelessness would ever happen to him, but it did and at first he lied about it, because he was embarrassed and afraid of what people would say and think. He called it 30 days homeless by choice. He had no clue homelessness would last 29 months.

April 3rd, 2008 Kengi was diagnosed HIV positive, he recalls being told by a hospital social worker that it would be a blessing for me him that housing and medical care would come very fast. It would be 14 months later that he would finally get his own place off the streets and after a long battle of fighting for medical care and access to services he nows have a HIV doctor he loves and trusts, a clinic that truly care for him and does all they can to make sure he is well taken care of and answer all his questions and concerns about HIV. Shortly after being “dumped” by the hospital where he was diagnosed Kengi wanted to start another outreach, but this one would be for people battling HIV and AIDS as well as low income and homelessness. It would be the sister outreach to my already successful Do Something Saturday that empowers people outreach for homeless people. On the one year anniversary of me being HIV positive he named my HIV outreach Unpluggin' HIV empowering a positive life.

Kengi's Do Something Saturday outreach is now well into it's 3rd year of grass roots service to people who are homeless, low income families, seniors and children. HeI has a meal program that offers high quality food to those in need, as well as bag groceries, McDonald's and Jack-n-the-Box meal cards, gently used clothes and shoes, sleeping bags and a host of other services including his Do Something Kit with is a hygiene kit. Unpluggin HIV is celebrating well into it's 2nd year of service with outreaches to people battling HIV and AIDS in Santa Monica, West LA, West Hollywood, Los Angeles and the bi-monthlu outreach in Downtown Los Angeles on Skid Row to a building that houses 40 residents who are low income battling HIV or AIDS.

Kengi's organization is not a non-profit and is not funded by any local, State or Federal funding sources, through the kindness of my awesome friends who happen to be my core group of supporters. Along with the use of my food stamps and when there is money left over after paying his rent and bills, Kengi is able to do the work that he created when he was homeless. He does not refer to what he does as “community” work because it is much bigger then the walls of “community” and he also feels that the word “community” separates and makes people different, so Kengi calls what he does work for “humanity” and when we think outside the box of “community” toward “humanity” no one is left out and all things are possible. Kengi loves the work he has created, he loves the people who have come to love and embrace it and he loves the people and lives his work touches, empowers, inspires and encourages both dignity and respect.

KengiI has friends who say “Humanity before Politics” but he likes to say “Connection without Bureaucracy”.

BLOG: http://www.blog.dosomethingsaturday.org/

YOUTUBE: http://www.youtube.com/user/Kengikat

WEBSITE: http://www.dosomethingsaturday.org/ (will be under construction soon)

Kengi was also one of our first Dab the AIDS Bear's Ambassadors of Hope. His hard and loyal work as an Ambassador of Hope has helped spread Dab the AIDS Bear's 29 year message of hope around the country.

For these and many more reasons, we are honored to name Kengi Carr as our Dab the AIDS Bear's Angel for May 2010.