IF YOU WOULD LIKE TO DONATE ONLINE FOR MY TRIP TO MOZAMBIQUE with Shakespeare Link Canada IN FALL 2012 (details below), please e-mail me at Teresa@LaughingRedhead.com - our donation procedures have been updated. You may go to www.CanadaHelps.org, then search for Native Earth Performing Arts, Inc., then choose "Donate Now" and "Shakespeare Link Canada (in Trust)" from the drop-down menu. You may then designate the amount you'd like to donate to the trip, as well as designate that the funds go specifically to support my trip over. Thanks so much!

I believe AIDS is the leprosy of our time.

Many times persons with AIDS are stigmatized and suffer greatly without access to the very most basic care.

For years, I have donated my artwork (www.LaughingRedhead.typepad.com) to organizations such as Colorado AIDS Project to help fundraise for programs for persons with AIDS. Additionally, I helped found THE LEGACY FOUNDATION with Diana Hollenbeck, who lost her brother Darryl to AIDS. My husband and I have both lost friends to AIDS.

For several years in Colorado, we gathered art from generous fine artists and did a line of greeting cards, LEGACY PRESS, which fund-raised to help Colorado AIDS Project. We organized a comedy benefit, starring Paula Poundstone, who generously donated her time and money to raise funds for VOLUNTEERS OF AMERICA, who have a Meals on Wheels program for homebound persons with AIDS.

My buddy Cathy Mackinnon, in Toronto, Ontario, Canada, is doing wonderful theatre with people from Mozambique with her production company, Shakespeare Link Canada (http://www.shakespearelinkcanada.ca). She works with a theatre company in Mozambique to do Shakespeare with regards to AIDS themes. I joined them in watching the troupe perform at the International AIDS Conference in Toronto!

Cathy has invited me to join her team for the last several years in Mozambique to make art with girls and young women there. I am halfway towards raising enough money to make the trip! As a professional artist and art teacher, I am thrilled to have this opportunity to make a difference in the world, and join the amazing Shakespeare Link Canada team, in their ongoing work in Quelimane, Mozambique.

I am currently investigating art, teaching, and health grants to pay my way over there. If you know of any I should investigate, please e-mail them to me at Teresa@LaughingRedhead.com, and put "Mozambique" in the subject line.

All this said, I want you to know I have a heart for persons with AIDS.

I will fundraise for this cause whenever I can.