Kaiser Permanente in Santa Rosa Displays Segment of national AIDS Memorial Quilt as Globe Poised to Mark World AIDS Day
A decade before Joel Redon died of AIDS in Sonoma County in 1995, the young writer traveled to Morocco to study under American expat author Paul Bowles at The American School of Tangier.
Patrick Ballard worked as a real estate agent and bartender in Guerneville before he died of AIDS in 1990.
Dennis Wheeler as a longtime Sonoma County journalist worked for numerous local newspapers, including The Press Democrat and Sonoma Index-Tribune. He died of AIDS in 1995.
The three AIDS victims are among eight people who had ties to Sonoma County memorialized on Block #4494 of the AIDS Memorial Quilt, considered the largest community arts project in American history.
The segment of the AIDS Quilt is now on display in one of the medical office buildings at the Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa Medical Center complex. On loan from the National AIDS Memorial, the 12-foot by 12-foot segment has, since Nov. 24, been hanging above the lobby of Kaiser’s MOB 1, part of Kaiser’s commemoration of World AIDS Day on Monday.
It’s the first time Kaiser has displayed the quilt segment, and only the third time it has made its way to Sonoma County, according to the National AIDS Memorial. Segments of the AIDS Quilt are regularly sent to communities across the country to raise awareness of the history and legacy of the AIDS epidemic.
On Monday from 12:30 to 1:30 p.m., Kaiser Permanente will hold a community event at its 401 Bicentennial Way medical complex to honor those who died of AIDS, as well as recognize the advances in HIV and AIDS treatment that have saved many lives.
Cleve Jones, a longtime Bay Area AIDS activist who founded the AIDS Quilt in San Francisco back in 1987, said the segment’s return to Kaiser’s Santa Rosa offices has special meaning for him. Jones, who lives in Guerneville, has lived with HIV for decades. He created the first quilt panel, in honor of his friend Marvin Feldman.
World recognized AIDS activist Cleve Jones rides at the front of the Utah Pride Parade in downtown Salt Lake City, Utah on Sunday, June, 7, 2009. (AP Photo/Mike Terry, Deseret News)
“I’m very touched that a section of the quilt found its way to Kaiser Santa Rosa,” Jones said. “It’s particularly meaningful for me because it was Kaiser Santa Rosa where I received treatment during the darkest days of the pandemic. I’m alive because of the care that I received there.”
Dr. Jessica August, chief of infectious disease at Kaiser Permanente Santa Rosa, called the quilt a “beautiful tribute” to the lives lost to HIV and AIDS. She pointed out that some of the panels have the words Sonoma County and Santa Rosa stitched into them.
Kaiser’s HIV team worked with the National AIDS Memorial in San Francisco to bring the quilt to Sonoma County.
“It’s very personal, actually, the piece of the quilt that we are able to host,” August said.
World’s biggest quilt
Altogether, the AIDS Quilt honors more than 110,000 AIDS victims on more than 50,000 panels and weighs more than 54 tons. If spread out, the quilt would cover more than 1.2 million square feet, or about 21 football fields.
Each six-foot by three-foot panel memorializes someone who died of AIDS. In some cases, a panel contains the names of several people. A quilt block is made up of eight panels.
It has famously been displayed several times on the National Mall in Washington, D.C., though it is now too big for even that venue. As large as it is, the names on the AIDS Quilt represent less than 20% of the actual number of HIV/AIDS deaths in the United States, reported to be more than 700,000.
Wheeler, a Fort Bragg native who began his career in journalism at the former Santa Rosa News Herald, earned awards for his investigative work, including stories about the infamous local religious camps run by the Rev. Sun Myung Moon Unification Church.
After being awarded a travel grant in 1984 from the Hiroshima International Cultural Foundation, Wheeler interviewed survivors of the U.S. atomic bomb dropped on that city at what would be the end of World War II. His stories, published in local, regional and national publications, earned him acclaim in both in the United States and Japan.
Wheeler, whose family moved to Santa Rosa, attended Montgomery High School, Santa Rosa Junior College and Sonoma State University. He was 40 when he died in 1995.
Another name found on Block #4494 is that of Joel Redon, a Portland, Oregon native who grew up in the suburbs of Lake Oswego. Redon was an author whose first published novel, “Bloodstream,” was a semi-autobiographical story of a young man living with AIDS.
Redon, who had lived in New York City and San Francisco, moved to Sonoma in 1991 and lived there for four years before he died of AIDS. Redon planned his AIDS quilt panel several years before his death, according to an account of his life by his friend Joan Leslie Taylor.
The epitaph he chose to be stitched into the panel is from American author Willa Cather: “That must be happiness to be dissolved into something complete and great.”
Small biographies of the lives commemorated on Block #4494 of the AIDS Quilt can be found on the Library of Congress website, which has photos and digital images of notes and eulogies written by family and friends.
On one panel, the names of family members and friends of Patrick Ballard are listed, along with photos of him as a child and adult. The backdrop is a blue traditional pattern.
In one of the digital documents, Ballard’s mother, Bess, writes, “I prayed that God would remove this H.I.V. infraction from his body and let him live. I at that time didn’t understand why Patrick was always so certain he was going to die. I didn’t realize that having seen so many friends die before him was what made him feel that way.”
At the event Monday, Kaiser officials are expected to recognize significant advancements in HIV prevention and treatment. That includes Kaiser Permanente Northern California’s role in conducting initial trials of the highly effective prevention strategy known as pre-exposure prophylaxis, or PrEP.
Kaiser Permanente also has a unique sexual health virtual visit or “eVisit” that allows patients to self-schedule testing and access prevention through the Kaiser’s website.
World AIDS Day events are set to take place across the nation and globe even as President Donald Trump’s State Department ordered its employees and grant recipients not to use government funds to mark or promote the day.
Earlier this year, the Trump administration froze billions of dollars in foreign aid while shuttering the main agency, USAID, charged with distributing those funds abroad — moves that rocked public health programs aimed at fighting HIV, the virus that causes AIDS.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a cabinet meeting at the White House, Wednesday, April 30, 2025, in Washington, as President Donald Trump look on. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
The cuts hobbled a 22-year-old program, launched under President George W. Bush and supported by presidents of both parties ever since, that was credited with major gains in HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, especially across Africa.
The cuts ordered by the Trump administration to that program, best known by its acronym PEPFAR — President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief — could result in “10 million additional HIV infections, including 1 million among children, and 3 million additional deaths over the next 5 years,” according to one published study.
“It’s shameful,” Jones said. “The gutting of the USAID programs, it’s estimated, has now killed more than 600,000 people, most of them children. And of course, that’s just the beginning.”