Threads of hope: Barbara's support for the HIV/AIDS community
June 24, 2025
As a teenager in the 1980s, the AIDS pandemic hit close to home for Barbara Smith.
She lost her high school classmate, Conrad, to the condition, and, after her brother, Art, came out as gay, she worried she’d lose him, too.
“I was scared because there was no treatment for AIDS back then,” Barbara said. “It was a death sentence.”
In 1985, the NAMES Project Foundation created the AIDS Memorial Quilt to raise awareness and honor the lives of those lost to HIV/AIDS. As part of the project, people across the U.S. contributed panels, each commemorating someone’s life and story, which volunteers stitched into a collective quilt.
Barbara and her mother, Carol Sabin, sewed two panels for the quilt: one for Conrad and another for Tom, a man from a nearby town.
They added a rainbow, sun, paint palette and music notes to Conrad’s panel. On Tom’s, they sewed a film reel, popcorn, a cat listening to a Walkman and a note signed by his mother that read, ‘Love you, miss you.’
Barbara (left) and her mother, Carol (right), creating Conrad’s and Tom’s quilt panels in the summer of 1987.
“It was emotional because we were honoring the beautiful life of someone gone too soon,” said Barbara, who remembers her mom giving Tom’s panel to his mother the night before sending it to San Francisco. “She told us she slept with it, and it felt like he was there.”
Today, Barbara works as an HIV senior billing representative for Genoa Healthcare. Each day, she helps over 170 pharmacies across the U.S. provide medications to people living with – or working to prevent – HIV by assisting with prior authorizations, ensuring timely medication filling and finding financial assistance opportunities for patients who need help paying for their treatment.
After providing on-site pharmacy care to people living with behavioral health conditions for over 20 years, Genoa opened its first pharmacy within an HIV/AIDS clinic in 2021. Since then, it has opened two others, and another is set to open in 2025.
Genoa’s unique setting enables its team members to meet patients where they are, so it’s easier for them to get – and stay on – their medications. Pharmacy teams receive specialized training to offer inclusive, specialized support to the HIV/AIDS community, partner with clinic staff to provide integrated care and offer free, discreet medication mailing.
In October 1987, Barbara and Carol’s panels were featured in the inaugural display of the quilt in Washington, D.C.
At the time, the quilt had 1,920 panels and was larger than a football field. It has continued to grow ever since, now weighing 54 tons and featuring nearly 50,000 panels honoring more than 110,000 people lost to HIV/AIDS. Today, it’s considered the largest community arts project in history and serves as a leading symbol of the AIDS pandemic.
Find Conrad’s panel by searching for block #768 and Tom’s by searching #770 on the interactive AIDS Quilt.
Barbara says it’s her job to make offering HIV care as easy as possible for Genoa pharmacy teams – and make sure the people they serve get the medications they need.
Clinical pharmacist Kim Cordova says Barbara’s work reduces barriers for patients every day.
“Her passion for supporting the people we serve shows in what she has done, does and looks to do,” said Kim.
“I wish that 19-year-old girl only knew the work I do today,” said Barbara, remembering adding her mark to the AIDS Memorial Quilt nearly 40 years ago. “Back then, there was no hope – but with today’s prevention and treatment options, people have a chance.”