COMMUNITY HERO HELPING AIDS AND POVERTY CAUSES

Hero: David Dyson
By: Loretta Dyson, Rocky Hill, CT

David Dyson, a volunteer has been leading the GIANT Tag Sale/auction Fundraiser, now in the 16th year, every summer to benefit the Tabor House AIDS residences in Hartford. The event, generating thousands of dollars annually, is held at the Convent of the Sisters of St. Joseph on Park Road West Hartford and has become one of the most important community fundraisers in the area. The numerous immigrants and neighborhood people living in poverty who shop at the sale for gently used items to outfit their residences, or to ship items back to their native countries, all benefit. The event also eliminates needless harm to the environment by offering recycled items for sale.

This week long event instilled everlasting community service values in the vast array of over 250 volunteers that David recruited this year, half of them being students.

Utilizing a great amount of imagination and spending countless hours, David arranged for logistics donations of storage, delivery and trash removal; convinced many local restaurants to donate lunches for the small army of volunteers, cemented relationships with large corporations, high schools colleges and religious groups who sent large teams of volunteers to staff the event; obtained prize donations for the auction, and located sources to obtain items to be sold at the Tag sale and arranged for press and media coverage. He accomplished all of this with no budget by engaging the community at large to help those in our own community in greater need.