March 2004

Welcome to the New Board Members

The Rev. Billy J. Alford

The Rev. Billy J. AlfordFather Alford, who has been rector of St. Alban’s in Augusta, Georgia, for 12 years, was introduced to AIDS ministry when he went to St. Alban’s as a deacon in 1992 after graduating from Virginia Theological Seminary. St. Alban’s had become engaged in AIDS ministry at the call of a chaplain at nearby Fort Gordon. A soldier who had contracted HIV was on full disability but could not return to his family in Mississippi because of the stigma the disease carried. Could St. Alban’s help?

It could. Father Alford’s predecessor, Father Joe Way, got the congregation involved. The church soon acquired two houses from the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development, one for men and one for women and children. When Father Alford arrived, one of his tasks was to act as chair of services, so he got to know all the clients. “It was really a well-oiled machine,” he said. “The present senior warden, a professor, had been a lawyer in New York; everything was beautifully organized.” The St. Stephen’s Ministry was set up to be a full service operation. Today there is space for 28 residents. The ministry also operates a community food cupboard.

Father Alford’s AIDS ministry may have begun when he went to St. Alban’s—until then, he had been particularly interested in the problems of the homeless, whom he had got to know doing CPE at St. Luke’s in Atlanta, which has, he said, “a massive ministry, a one-stop with everything from doctors and health care to a full mail system”—but it didn’t stop there. Soon he was active in the Province IV conferences at Kanuga, working with Peter Lee, then a NEAC board member, and helping to build a relatively small operation into an annual highlight that draws easily 300 people. He commended former NEAC executive director Ted Karpff for bringing NEAC in as a Kanuga sponsor, as it still is. “For many who come to Kanuga,” he said, “this is the only contact they have with real spiritual support.”

Another aspect of Father Alford’s AIDS ministry is his service on the Executive Council Standing Commission on HIV/AIDS; he is now in his second term. He has served the church as a deputy to the past three General Conventions and chaired the most recent deputations. He is also active in the VTS Alumni/ae Committee and has served as president of its Executive Committee.

Father Alford did not come immediately to his vocation. After graduating from Albany State College in Georgia with a degree in speech and theatre, he joined the Navy and spent four years based in San Diego and operating in the Western Pacific. On leaving the Navy, he returned to Albany and became a substitute teacher while staying active in community theatre.

Brother Robert L’Espérance, SSJE

Brother Robert L’Espérance, SSJEIt was a long and varied road to AIDS ministry and to the religious life for Brother Robert L’Espérance, who joined the Society of Saint John Evangelist in April 2000. The holder of a B.A. from Georgetown and an M.A. in public administration from Fordham, he began his career with the U.S. government in the New York Regional Office of Alcohol, Drug Abuse, and Mental Health Administration. A few years later, he moved on to Children’s Television Workshop in New York, where he worked as a financial analyst and later assistant director of human resources.

In 1989, he moved to Charleston, South Carolina, to work as director of human resources for Thalhimer Brothers. Within two years, Brother Robert became a buddy-volunteer for Lowcountry AIDS Services. Not much after, he joined the LAS staff as volunteer coordinator and became the LAS comptroller in January 1995.

He says he is “particularly proud of having implemented the first Housing Opportunities for People with AIDS programs in South Carolina.”

The nature of his ministry changed when he joined the Society, where he made his initial profession in monastic vows in October 2002. Besides serving as guestmaster for the monastery, he serves as spiritual director for five men and five women, whom he sees monthly.

In his spare time (!), he is general manager for Cowley Publications, the community publishing ministry and is responsible for the monastery and guesthouse grounds and gardens.

Amy Slemmer

Currently director of policy development for the American Red Cross, Amy Slemmer has found her life interwoven with the AIDS epidemic for many years. As a staff member for Senator Ted Kennedy in the late 80s, she helped draft the first funding bill for AIDS proposed by the Senator’s Health Policy Committee. She was one of the first volunteers for Episcopal Caring Response to AIDS, where she worked closely with Hart Roussel, later its executive director and now NEAC treasurer—and where she also met her adopted daughter, Cynthia, now 14. Amy was an ECRA volunteer with Cynthia’s family.

Amy is a graduate of Wheaton College in Massachusetts (political science and prelaw) and Georgetown Law School. After leaving Senator Kennedy’s office, she worked for several law firms. Today, much of her legal work is pro bono: She serves as a consultant in grassroots advocacy to, among other organizations, Mothers’ Voices, the Pediatric AIDS Foundation, and the National Association of People with AIDS.

Nor is AIDS work her only ministry. She serves as a diocesan delegate (she is a parishioner of St. Alban’s in Washington, D.C.) and as an adviser for children with special needs, and has recently founded an organization to work on voting rights for the District of Columbia.

One of the aspects of being on the NEAC board that is particularly appealing, she says, is the opportunity to “marry my faith with a deep personal concern for those caught up in the AIDS epidemic.”