Founded in 1984 by a small group of concerned citizens as “Friends Who Care”, the Southern Tier AIDS Program began with $50,000, three staff, donated office space and a desire to ease the suffering of our friends who were dying. Thirty-seven years later STAP is an organization of 75+ professional staff and an operating budget of 3 million dollars annually. The passion and creativity that began this organization continues to inform us today as we provide supportive services to HIV+ persons and state of the art prevention education from 9 offices in 8 counties (Broome, Chenango, Chemung, Cortland, Delaware, Otsego, Tioga and Tompkins) of the Southern Tier of New York. Our mission is to compassionately and competently meet the evolving needs of our communities by serving people affected by chronic illness and to improve public health through disease prevention, care coordination and advocacy.