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June 27, 2008

AIDS Project RI, Family Service announce merger

In a move designed to achieve bureaucratic efficiencies and improve HIV/AIDS advocacy and prevention efforts, two major social-service groups -- AIDS Project Rhode Island and Family Service of Rhode Island -- this morning announced that they have merged.

AIDS Project Rhode Island will now be known as “AIDS Project Rhode Island, a division of Family Service of Rhode Island,” leaders of both groups said at a news conference in the City Hall office of Providence Mayor David Cicilline.

“This is a win-win situation for both of us,” said Sue Johnson, a board member of AIDS Project Rhode Island. Cicilline, a former chairman of the APRI board, joined discussions that led to the merger.

Family Service CEO Margaret Holland McDuff said the merger will provide a “platform” on which to improve HIV/AIDs prevention and advocacy efforts. Although treatments developed in the last decade extend the life of people with the disease, McDuff reminded those at the conference that the disease has not gone away.

“It’s still, unfortunately, alive and ‘well’ in Rhode Island,” McDuff said.

-- Journal staff writer G. Wayne Miller

Posted by Jack Perry  at 10:59 AM | Permalink

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