What a group of bartenders did to help feed those with AIDS

The Shoulders I Stand On

Big Mike Phillips

Part II: Continued from February 2024, Volume 4, Issue 33 of lgbtqsd.news.

Not knowing anything about putting together an event as large as we had imagined, we were not even close to being prepared to introduce this first “Bartenders Christmas Charity” to our community. But we had already stuck our feet in the water, so there was no turning back.

By now, we had a few more people that believed in us, especially our family of bartenders and Michael Portantino with his paper, the Gay & Lesbian Times. 

Paying out of our own pockets at the time, Nigel and I had posters, table tents and flyers made to help promote our one-night event in all the gay bars. It was beginning to become the talk of the community, because with all the bartenders promoting the event, you could find our posters hanging in the restrooms of every participating establishment. We posted them there on purpose, because sooner or later, everyone would likely use the restroom, so we put the poster where they would most likely be seen and read. The two of us agreed that our goal for our first-ever fundraiser would be to raise $5,000 dollars. We really had faith that we would reach this goal, giving our bartenders and our community an easy way to be included.

It just so happened that my then wonderful roommate David Koehn had invited me to go to Chicago for a couple of days for my Christmas present months before Nigel and I decided to embark on this adventure. After Chicago we headed over to visit with David’s family in Michigan, to celebrate Christmas. So, I left it all with Nigel and Michael Lunsford to handle collecting all the donations after the big night of giving back to this worthy charity. It was in good hands.

We had furnished a 5 x 7 manila envelope to each of the bartenders, with their names, the bar they worked at and the amount they were donating, to make it easier to collect and keep track of all these amazing bartenders’ generosity. While it was unfortunate that I’d be out of town, I was excited to visit Chicago for the first time, but I also wanted to experience the excitement of the giving that would be happening in the entire gay community here at home. The night before I left, I made sure I did my part in giving back as well. I gladly put all my promotional materials on my bar with a sign that said, “I will be donating half my tips tonight to support Special Delivery to feed those living with AIDS/HIV.”

I was able to donate about $300, which was more than half of what I made that night, mainly because my customers were tipping me very generously. I was still able to take a good amount of tips home.

So off I went to Chicago, which was somewhere I had always wanted to go to. It was so much fun and such a beautiful, clean city. After a couple of days, David rented a car and we drove to his mom’s house in Plainwell, Michigan. I met his entire family, and it just so happened to be the evening of the “Bars Christmas Charity” event. I was so excited to talk to Nigel the next day to find out how the night went. I knew there was still a lot to do, like pick up the envelopes from all the bars, and then count the money. I did call Nigel just to say hello and he said once everyone’s envelopes were collected, and he had counted all the donations, he would give me a call.

I remember as if it was yesterday; David’s mom and several of the other relatives had prepared a delicious family feast, and afterwards we were all in the living room relating and talking, when the phone rang, and it was Nigel. I got up and asked if I could go downstairs to the basement so I could talk to Nigel without any interruptions. I was excited and nervous at the same time.

After saying our hello and checking on each other, I said, “So, how did it turn out?”

Nigel said, “I have good news and I have bad news, which do you want to hear first?”

“The bad news,” I said, “let’s just get that out of the way.”

Then Nigel proceeds to say: “Well we did not reach our goal of $5,000.” My heart sunk to my stomach, and then, before I could get a word out, he said, “But the good news is we raised $7,500 dollars.”

OMG, I started screaming for joy and crying and felt so much happinesses that our community came through. We always had faith that this would work. I was so loud, dancing for joy and talking so loud, David had to come down to see if I was ok. I was so happy, we were both so happy.  That first event got Nigel and I so fired up that we knew we needed to continue this and start planning for the coming new year.

Ruth Henricks was so blown away with the outcome, she was so touched that all these bartenders would donate half of all their tips, and the fact that our community came out to support those bartenders was overwhelming for all of us.

It was an amazing feeling the day that we presented Ruth with that check for $7,500; to me it ia still one of the proudest moments of my life. I had never done anything like this ever before, so to do it with my best friend, Nigel, and all these generous bartenders, and a community that embraced a simple idea, was a memory of good I will always cherish.

Bobby Haas, who was the president of the board of Special Delivery in 1997, came to Nigel and I after that first event and asked if he could help us continue this incredible idea and even make it bigger.

Well of course Nigel and I were glad to have someone who knew more about fundraising than the two of us did. Now things were about to get bigger and better and a charity organization would soon be in the works.

Nigel and I started to talk to people we knew and get them involved and we worked around their talents. Debbie Yoakum was our one-and-only woman who was ever involved with our project.

We all agreed we needed to come up with a name that described our new charity organization. Debbie played a major part in this; she had a friend who helped the three of us, (Nigel, Debbie, and I) create a name and mission statement, which would change how we would get our community even more involved.

It was a great concept and a lot of fun working together to put all these positive words together into sentences, and we watched everything fall into place.

We finally decided on our organization name and then we were able to construct our mission statement.

“Our mission is to generate hope and love, inspire participation, and enrich the quality of life, by serving our community. We are a team of dedicated volunteers committed to embracing the needs of the abused, sick, and hungry, uniting a community to make a powerful difference and inspire all people to create Ordinary Miracles.”

Again, due to space, this story will continue in the April issue.

I hope you will continue to follow my journey of how a community came together to be involved as they helped change a small part of our world, called San Diego, to create Ordinary Miracles for our brothers living with AIDS/HIV.

These are the shoulders I stand upon.

–Big Mike Phillips is a local photographer, bartender, and longtime LGBT activist and fundraiser. You can reach him at [email protected].

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