Audrey Chavez remembers two things clearly about losing her brother Ricky to AIDS: the pain and the silence.

“The first thing you feel is the emptiness and the deafening silence,” Chavez said.

Ricky, who was 10 years older, died in 1992. Chavez had learned of his HIV diagnosis in 1990, at a time when fear and misinformation about the disease were widespread.

“He was still our loved one. Still fully human,” Chavez said. “He just had a new diagnosis.”

Instead of allowing grief to close her off, Chavez said the silence pushed her into action.

In January 1993, Chavez founded the Bakersfield AIDS Project, an all-volunteer organization dedicated to education, prevention, and support for people living with HIV and AIDS. More than 30 years later, Chavez remains its president.

Chavez, born and raised in Bakersfield, said caring for her brother shaped her understanding of illness, stigma and compassion.

“Being a caregiver for someone with a chronic illness changes you,” she said. “You see how people react. The attitudes. The stigma. The lack of willingness to become informed.”

At the time, Chavez said many people did not understand how HIV was transmitted. Myths were common, even in schools and churches.

“I wanted people to know, from the Centers for Disease Control, the three ways it was transmitted,” she said. “And to not be afraid.”

She began sharing Ricky’s story publicly, despite concerns from about backlash.

“People worried about what others might say, how they might treat our family,” Chavez said. “But that shouldn’t be the barrier to honoring Ricky’s life.”

Chavez insisted on using the word “AIDS” in the organization’s name.

“If we don’t have it there, how are they going to find us?” she said. “How are we dispelling the stigma if we aren’t willing to [address] the problem?”

The early years of the Bakersfield AIDS Project were marked by outreach and unexpected connections. Chavez said many people quietly approached her for help including patients, families and members of the LGBTQ+ community.

“Everywhere I went, people seemed to come out to me,” Chavez said. “In schools, grocery stores, different places.”

Through those conversations, Chavez said she learned how deeply HIV and AIDS affected the community.

“I didn’t recognize all the differences at first,” she said. “How it affected people of color more. The barriers women faced. The importance of testing pregnant women to prevent babies from becoming infected.”

One of the organization’s most significant efforts was the creation of Ricky’s Retreat, a home for people with AIDS who had nowhere else to go.

Chavez recalls visiting a young mother in her 30s at Memorial Hospital who was dying and terrified of being sent to Los Angeles for care.

“She said, ‘I have children. I need to stay here,’” Chavez said.

At the time, Chavez said some skilled nursing facilities turned away younger patients or those with an AIDS diagnosis.

“You’d call and ask if they had a bed,” Chavez said. “They’d say yes. Then once they heard the diagnosis, suddenly the bed was gone.”

Determined to help, Chavez found a house on Grace Street. Within weeks, volunteers cleaned and repaired it. The woman moved in by ambulance.

“She cried when she arrived,” Chavez said.

For about two weeks, Chavez said, the woman’s daughters visited daily, coloring pictures and encouraging their mother.

“She passed away there,” Chavez said. “But her children were with her. She was in a safe space, with love and support.”

Since opening, Chavez said Ricky’s Retreat has housed more than 100 people. Some died there. Others regained their health and moved into independent housing.

“[It] is completely volunteer,” Chavez said. “There’s no paid staff. Everything we do is for the community.”

Not every story ended with closure. Chavez said some experiences still weigh heavily on her, including cases involving undocumented patients.

“There were people whose remains I couldn’t collect because I wasn’t next of kin,” she said.

Others asked for their ashes to remain at Ricky’s Retreat.

“We’ve had funerals there,” Chavez said. “We’ve had people pass, and we’ve had people get better. It’s been a place of love and light.”

Chavez said stigma often revealed itself in subtle ways, including what she called it as a “hierarchy” of judgment around illness.

“People always want to know how someone got sick,” she said. “As if that determines how much compassion they deserve.”

At Ricky’s Retreat, Chavez said, that mindset is left at the gate.

“Everyone who comes through that fence is equal,” she said. “I don’t care if you’re straight, gay, documented or undocumented.”

Chavez’s activism has expanded beyond HIV and AIDS. She speaks about health equity, undocumented residents and the responsibility to defend vulnerable populations.

“We don’t need it to affect us personally,” she said. “We are all called to advocate.”

Reflecting on events like the display of the AIDS Memorial Quilt in Bakersfield, Chavez said the panels serve as powerful reminders.

“When we talk about ‘the humanity behind the statistics,’ that’s what we mean,” she said. “Those names, those dates, these were people from Bakersfield, from Wasco, from our churches and schools.”

More than three decades after Ricky’s death, Chavez continues the work she said began with grief but is sustained by purpose.

“I felt it was a responsibility,” she said. “And a calling.”