UF Rainbow Center staff members join center director Mobeen Rathore, M.D., (third from left) and FCCA board of directors president Marcia Richardson (fifth from left) in the center’s rainbow-colored waiting room for presentation of the Tarsha Butler grant award. Pictured (left to right) are Ana Alvarez, LaSonya Milton, Rathore, John Roberts, Richardson, Tavia Leonard, Melissa Scites, Cheryl Martin, Alfreda Telfair and Jessica Joyce.
The University of Florida Rainbow Center for Women, Adolescents, Children & Families at Shands Jacksonville – the only comprehensive HIV/AIDS program in North Florida – was awarded the second annual Tarsha Butler grant by First Coast Child Advocates, Inc. Named in memory of Butler, the $5,000 grant is designed to help children and teens coping with the effects of AIDS lead fuller lives.
FCCA is a non-profit board that supports the Guardian ad Litem (GAL) Program in the Fourth Judicial Circuit (Clay, Duval and Nassau counties). The GAL Program is the state program charged with ensuring that children in the dependency system have an independent advocate working on their behalf in court.
Marcia C. Richardson, FCCA board president, who presented the grant to Mobeen Rathore, M.D., Rainbow Center director and professor and division chief of UF Pediatric Infectious Diseases and Immunology at Jacksonville, said the group was pleased to award the Tarsha Butler grant to the Rainbow Center.
Mobeen Rathore, M.D.
“With the $5,000, the Rainbow Center will be able to enrich the lives of children and teenagers who are living with AIDS – many of whom are struggling to stay alive – and we are very excited about helping them live life to the fullest extent possible,” she said.
Tarsha Butler contracted AIDS while she was in foster care. As a result, the Guardian ad Litem Program in the Fourth Judicial Circuit, on behalf of Tarsha and in the name of the FCCA, won a suit against the Florida Department of Children & Families. Unfortunately, Tarsha died before she could benefit from the monetary judgment. Subsequently, FCCA was named guardian of the trust, and only children with AIDS are able to receive funds and/or benefit from it.
“Tarsha was a lovely child who, to her death at a very young age, always had a smile despite how sick she was,” Rathore said. “Tarsha’s smile continues to light up lives now, thanks to this grant that we received in her memory, which will bring smiles to many young HIV-infected patients who are going through the same illness.”
According to Rathore, the grant will provide for services not provided by other funding sources. “The grant will allow us to send children to camp and provide other activities for their psychosocial health,” he said.