7688: Mob Ministry.

From Gambit…

The Goodie Mob

Using an eye-opening billboard that’s become famous around the world and some frank talk, a local church and its ‘mobsters’ take aim at New Orleans’ STD rates

By Alex Woodward

With an appearance on Vh1’s Best Week Ever and as an Internet meme around the globe, a New Orleans billboard was one of 2009’s favorite Web stars. In big, bold red letters near the Louisiana Superdome was the phrase, destined to be emailed, remailed and blogged to infinity:

“HIV… It’s Time to Take Control of This GANGSTA!”

The names and faces of the gangbusting crew (dubbed the “HIV Prevention Mobsters” and written in a Godfather-style script) are displayed underneath, led by da Condom Godfather, with da Trich Terminator, da Crabs Assassin, da Chlamydia Crusher and da Herpes Hitwoman — among others.

The crew belongs to the St. John No. 5 Baptist Faith Church and Camp ACE HIV Program, a faith-based organization offering free condoms and frank, open discussions about sex and sexually transmitted diseases — and their phones rang off the hook once the billboard made headlines.

“We got calls, people saying, ‘Can I speak to the mobsters?’ And we start laughing,” says executive director Tamachia Davenport. “‘Which one are you? What’s your name? Let me speak to da Gonorrhea Crusher.’”

Davenport also was surprised at the April 22 New Orleans City Council meeting, where the program directors, wearing bright red T-shirts, promoted the group’s May 15 event, the second annual HIV Awareness Extravaganza. Councilmembers Arnie Fielkow and Cynthia Willard-Lewis showered the group with praise, commending them for their service. Davenport says she knew the council had her back, but she didn’t expect councilmembers to know her name.

“St. John (No. 5) provides a wonderful program that is vitally important given the increase of HIV in New Orleans, especially in minority communities,” City Council President Arnie Fielkow said in an email to Gambit. Fielkow also encourages people to take advantage of testing programs to protect themselves and their families.

“That’s an advantage of being faith-based in this fight,” Davenport says. “We’ve been the faith-based (organization) that provides the testing, provides the sessions, provides the events, the conversation, that distributes condoms. We’re probably on the extreme end of the fight, but we’ve been seeing more faith-based (organizations) — whether it’s churches, mosques, synagogues, Seventh Day Adventists, Catholics — evolve in the fight we started 14 years ago.”

St. John No. 5 started the Camp ACE (Alert Community Empowerment) social ministry program in 1989. Following the opening of a summer camp, the church started offering other programs, including an education department offering afterschool tutoring and GED prep.

Through that education program, Davenport says, the church saw the need to address HIV. Kids were talking about it, and some church members disclosed to pastor Bruce Davenport Sr. they had tested positive for the syndrome (he had come across some HIV-positive members of his flock while he was visiting others in the hospital). The pastor didn’t understand why HIV-positive members weren’t asking the church for help.

“They feared they’d be ostracized — exiled — from church,” Tamachia says. “He decided the church itself needed to take a stand. The community as a whole was asking faith-based organizations to step up and deal with HIV.”

Read the full story here.