AIDS Resource Foundation for Children

The AIDS Resource Foundation for Children (ARFC), founded in 1985 by Terry and Faye Zealand, is a community-based non-profit organization committed to providing cost-effective, family-centered services to children coping with the impact of HIV/AIDS. The couple dreamed of an organization that would provide services for children with AIDS and during a tour of Children’s Hospital AIDS Programs (CHAPS), Terry and Faye met a two-year old girl with HIV infection who had just been orphaned. The child was forced to remain in the hospital setting since there was no one yet identified and qualified to act as a foster parent. It was this experience that focused the Zealand’s mission: provide resources to help homeless children with AIDS. This was the birth of the AIDS Resource Foundation for Children.

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After consultation with various professionals in the field of pediatric AIDS, it was determined that there was a need for a transitional foster care facility near the Newark hospital. Thanks to the help of the original advisory group, the late Sister Elizabeth Maloney, an administrator of St. Elizabeth’s Hospital, and several others, Mr. and Mrs. Zealand were able to secure a one family brick home in Elizabeth—the first St. Clare’s Home for Children. St. Clare’s opened its doors in May 1987 to its first child, a two month-old girl with HIV, followed by four other children under the age of six. This home has been identified as the first transitional care facility in the nation for children with HIV/AIDS. In its first two years of operation, St. Clare’s provided a home to twenty-nine children.

Soon after opening the St. Clare’s Home in Elizabeth, the ARFC opened Haller House in Newark to provide supportive services for families once a child left the care centers. Due to the growing needs of children and their families living with HIV/AIDS, the Foundation acquired 176 Roseville Avenue to house St. Clare’s Social Services, making Haller House the administrative offices for the Foundation.