The Rev. Eyleen Farmer reflects on her experience with her first AIDS Healing Service at Calvary Episcopal Church in Memphis, TN.

“When he got here he was very disappointed that there were no services at all and he had a dream to change that,” said Butch McKay, who now, 20 years later, directs an organization that fulfills that dream — the Okaloosa AIDS Support and Information Service (OASIS) center in Fort Walton Beach. The center received its nonprofit status Oct. 3, 1991, after a small band of volunteers, including Neal’s mother Carmelita, started meeting regularly. “The first office was Carmelita’s trunk, then it moved to the kitchen,” McKay said. St. Simon’s on the Sound Episcopal Church later let the group move into its first real office space.