“Our son Josh died of AIDS five years ago,” Mary Gomes wrote to TPAN last year. “In order to keep Josh’s legacy alive we established a college scholarship for persons with AIDS. It is our goal to ‘lay a path for hope’ for young adults like Josh—those with HIV/AIDS—by providing academic scholarships to universities of their choice.”

At the time of his death, Josh Gomes was 21 and working toward a double degree at the University of Denver for pre-medicine and pre-law. A hemophiliac, he contracted HIV at the age of two through a blood transfusion. Still, he always maintained a positive outlook on life. The opening lines of his scholarship website state that “Josh was a man with a plan. He had drive. He had passion. He had hope for the future.” It is also said of Gomes, who was his high school valedictorian, that “learning was one of his core values: to stop learning was to truly die.” But in looking for his own scholarship to college, he found that even many scholarships created in tribute to children with hemophilia who died from AIDS often went to those who weren’t HIV-positive, and, “He believed that action spoke loudly: You may die, so we won’t invest.” Thus, the $1,000 scholarships given by his fund are attached with the message, “You are worth investing in.”

Nineteen-year-old Brett Tucker, who was infected at age 16, agrees that some people have the opinion “you’re not worth investing in,” but says, “I think everyone is worth investing in, if given the right opportunities.” Tucker said the $1,000 scholarship was very helpful, paying for all of his books at Johnson Smith University in Charlotte, North Carolina, where he is in his first year.

Does Tucker believe he has as much to offer as other students? “Yes, probably more so. My perception of time and value is altered.”

Tucker took on a double major of English and psychology, and hopes to eventually earn a Ph.D. He also hopes that more people donate money to the scholarship fund so that more students can be awarded.

Mary Gomes said, “Here are people who just a few years ago had no hope of living and now they are reaching for and obtaining their goals and dreams. When one of the recipients recently called to tell me that he had been accepted at Oxford in England, I cried! He thanked my family for changing his life. I am really at a loss for words to describe the emotions that we have. It’s almost like having an extended family that we are now cheering for and they are winning.”

Her husband Steven Gomes added, “Our motto is ‘laying a path of hope,’ but this is so much more than hope. It is transformation. People’s lives are changed by receiving this scholarship and living into their dream.”

There’s the young single mom with two kids (both HIV-negative) who works in a woman’s clinic as a nurse’s aide, helping other women also living with AIDS. “She needed to provide more for her children and she wanted to do more to help the women she was working with, so she dreamed of going to nursing school,” Steven Gomes said. “Her clinic doctors recommended her, both for the extraordinary care she was providing to the other mothers, who were struggling with their health, but also with how to live their lives in the face of the threat of losing it all.

“This year, with Josh’s scholarship, she began full-time classes in nursing school. She still works all day in the clinic and takes her classes at night. She is fulfilling her dream. Right now, she is incredibly busy with work, school, and being a mom. Her life is filled to the brim. We hear from her each week, about her excitement at accomplishing her goals and her happiness with two healthy children,” he said.

The scholarships are based on merit and need. They are given to young adults with HIV/AIDS who share Josh Gomes’ love of learning and community service. The application for the scholarship includes some brief questions along with an essay about the applicant’s hopes, plans, and goals for the future.

The fund also accepts donations, in hopes of giving out more scholarships per year, and they will award as many as they take in funds for. The deadline for 2007–2008 applications is July 16th, 2007.

To donate, to apply

Mary Gomes says, “Since word has gotten out about our scholarship, we are being bombarded with applications from across the nation. Our only source of funding has been what our share of what our AIDS Walk team raises each year, and that isn’t a whole lot. Since our start up five years ago, we have managed to give out 22 scholarships. We take absolutely no funds for administration costs and are a 501(c)3 [non-profit] organization.”

For more information about Josh Gomes, to apply for this scholarship, or to donate to the Joshua Gomes Memorial AIDS Scholarship Fund, visit www.joshuagomes.org.