Joe Arena and his husband Dr. Thomas D’Eletto have supported GMHC for over 40 years – since just after the agency launched in 1982 as Gay Men’s Health Crisis, the world’s first HIV and AIDS service organization.
“I would say that I can’t wait until you guys go out of business. That was 1983. Now it’s 2025, and we’re still writing a check every year,” Joe says. “The mission is not completed. Until there’s a vaccination and a cure for AIDS, we have a moral obligation to continue the work.”
To Tom and Joe, supporting GMHC matters more than ever right now. “There has never been a time when the government has taken such a hostile approach toward HIV/AIDS organizations,’ Joe says. “We still have to fight for our community and our rights.”
The couple met in 1981, just as New York City became the epicenter of the AIDS crisis. “Fear was constant, information was scarce, and the losses grew by the day. Like so many in our community, we felt a responsibility to help,” Tom says.
In his practice as a pulmonologist, Tom saw some of the first AIDS patients in his community, who presented with opportunistic lung infections such as pneumocystis pneumonia. At that time, many doctors were reluctant to see these patients.
Joe started volunteering two evenings a week for GMHC’s crisis hotline. “People called from across the country with questions that none of us had the answers to,” he says. “We would give what information we could. Sometimes, the only thing we could offer was compassion, and the promise that they were not alone.”
“At first, a lot of people were hesitant about volunteering – or even being seen going into GMHC’s building,” he recalls. “But just about everybody in New York in the 1980s and 1990s was touched by AIDS, and the hotline grew quickly.”
Research, Education and Community
Through their involvement with GMHC, Joe and Tom started giving to other HIV/AIDS and LGBTQ+ organizations, such as Callen-Lorde, which provides healthcare to the LGBTQ+ community and people with HIV, and the Ali Forney Center, which serves LGBTQ+ homeless youth.
“Research, education, and community support remain essential in the fight against HIV/AIDs,” Tom says. Those themes shine through in their giving. For AIDS-related research, they support amfAR. They also support the New York LGBTQ Historic Sites Project, the New York chapter of GLSEN (Gay-Lesbian Straight Education Network), the National Gay Lesbian Task Force, the Human Rights Campaign, Lambda Legal, Rainbow Railroad, Equality Florida, and the ACLU of Florida.
After Joe retired from Wall Street, he turned to greater activity in philanthropy . He and Tom became more intentional about their giving, enlisting the New York Community Trust to manage their charitable funds and advise their philanthropy.
Now they support numerous organizations, including GMHC. Along with LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS nonprofits, they give to a diverse array of causes in the areas of medicine, community and social services, and the environment.
Reaching the next generation
Tom and Joe believe that outreach and education are critically important for ending the HIV epidemic. “Some young LGBTQ people don’t even know that there was an AIDS crisis,” Joe says. “All they know is you take a PrEP pill and it saves you from getting HIV. But there are still people who do not take their PrEP pills regularly – or have access to these medications. That is very concerning.”
What’s more, he adds, the demographics for those most at risk for HIV infection have shifted, so it mainly affects lower income people of color – and many are unaware of their HIV status. “If anybody’s getting it, it’s one too many in our book,” Joe says. “It is through GMHC’s outreach that many New Yorkers find out about PrEP and gain access to HIV prevention and treatment medications – especially now that many schools don’t even want to talk about sex education.”
“Another thing young people take for granted is our history in the struggle for equality,” he adds. “They need to know what people sacrificed and what life was like for gay people before the LGBTQ rights movement.”
“We need to understand our history and where we’ve come from to motivate us toward our ultimate goal of equality within our society,” Tom says.
That’s why Joe and Tom helped co-produce rising young filmmaker Matt Nadel’s award-winning documentary, “Cashing Out,” about gay men selling their life insurance policies to investors for quick cash in the early years of the AIDS crisis. When GMHC hosted a screening of “Cashing Out” in September, the two joined an intergenerational talkback afterwards. “It’s our duty to educate young LGBTQ people,” Joe says.
The couple believe that GMHC’s supportive services for people aging with HIV and AIDs are also critical. Thanks to effective HIV treatment medications, people with HIV and AIDS are living a lot longer, they say, but many are struggling with loneliness and chronic illnesses.
“We look forward to the day when GMHC says to us: You know, we don’t need to do this anymore,” Joe says. “GMHC has always been an ethical, caring organization. Until we get a vaccine that I can put in my arm, labeled ‘cure,’ we will keep supporting them.”
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