The big feast

After a three-year absence one of Boston's signature events for people living with HIV/AIDS, the Boston Living Center's Celebration of Life Thanksgiving Dinner, returns this month to the Hynes Convention Center. From its founding in 1993 through 2003 the dinner provided people living with HIV/AIDS the chance to come together at the Hynes, where they were waited on by an all-volunteer team featuring the city's top AIDS doctors, health officials and local celebrities. For three years the Living Center moved the event in-house, but it was a much more subdued affair; the event was limited to Living Center members, and while Mayor Tom Menino always appeared to welcome attendees, the roster of A-list volunteers serving as waiters shrank. This year the dinner returns to the Hynes, and Living Center communications and grants coordinator Jaimie Peltzman said one of the goals of raising the event's profile is to send the message that the fight against AIDS is far from over.

"We want to send the message to the public, to everyone, that HIV is a top concern in 2007. As you know people are still getting infected, people are still dying, and in 2007 HIV has become complicated by a lot of other factors," said Peltzman, who said that issues like addiction provide new challenges to those working to end the epidemic and advocating for those living with HIV/AIDS. "So we really want to send the message that HIV is a concern for everyone, and if they're living with HIV there's a place for them to come to."

The Celebration of Life dinner will take place Nov. 20, and the years away from the Hynes do not seem to have diminished any of the excitement about the event within the HIV/AIDS community. All 850 seats for the dinner have already been reserved, and Peltzman said at this point the Living Center is adding the names of people interested in attending to a wait list in case anyone cancels their reservation. The return to the Hynes coincides with the return of the celebrities. In addition to Menino, who will once again give opening remarks at the dinner, WBZ television icon Liz Walker will host the event, and a roster of local celebs, including Channel 5 weatherman David Brown, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy producers Michael Williams and David Collins, Car Talk co-host Tom Magliozzi, and Elliot Tatelman of Jordan's Furniture will be on hand as celebrity servers for the dinner.

Peltzman said while the Living Center is trying to reignite interest in the event after its low profile for the past three years, the spirit of the event is markedly different than what it was when it was first launched. During the first years of the dinner in the early to mid-90s, before the advent of combination therapy using antiretroviral drugs to treat HIV, the words "Celebration of Life" had particular urgency.

"It was a celebration of another year of living. It was a way for the community to come together and share resources, and particularly because holidays can be tough for people living with the virus or any chronic illness, and some people were suffering from isolation and depression, and this is a way to [combat it]," said Peltzman.

'We want to send the message to the public, to everyone, that HIV is a top concern in 2007.'At its peak in the late 90s, Peltzman said the event drew a crowd of more than 2000 attendees and had 500 volunteers. But over time she said the large scale of the event and the immense amount of work required to produce it took its toll on the Living Center, and they switched to a more stripped down event held within the Living Center.

"Essentially it became such a huge undertaking to do this event for over 2000 people, and we, like everyone in the HIV/AIDS community, became tired. ... So we brought it in house and would have several seatings, and we served BLC members as opposed to the entire HIV community at large," said Peltzman.

She said the Living Center decided to go back to the Hynes this year to remind the community at large that the HIV/AIDS epidemic is still an urgent problem in Boston.

Yet she acknowledged that the experience of living with HIV/AIDS is dramatically different for many of the Living Center's members, and the dinner is not just a celebration of living another year but of living a full, active life.

"What I see is what we're really celebrating the empowerment of members. They're living well, they're returning to work, they're learning how to manage side effects of the medications. ... For many people the event has tremendous historical significance, and it's also incredible for people to look around the room and see hundreds of other people living with HIV/AIDS, people who cut across every demographic group," said Peltzman. "And I think the spirit of empowerment is contagious."

The Celebration of Life Thanksgiving Dinner will take place Nov. 20 at the Hynes Convention Center, and it begins at 5 p.m. For more information or to place your name on the waiting list for the dinner call 617.236.1012 ext 0.