Donna Lawson is a neighbor and former school principal receiving medically tailored groceries and nutrition therapy thanks to caring community members like you. She courageously shared the story of her HIV diagnosis publicly for the first time at a recent Food & Friends event, and you can now read her story in her own words. Donna is an accomplished educator, a loving grandmother, and aspiring author. We are honored to amplify her voice.
Good evening, My name is Donna Lawson, and I believe Food & Friends is God’s providential way of showing care and love — providing fresh food for health, for hope, and for healing.
Donna sharing her story.
I am a mother of two beautiful adult daughters and grandmother to three precious grandchildren: one boy and two girls. My older daughter is a lawyer who works within the school system in closing the School to Prison Pipeline, a disturbing national trend wherein youth are funneled out of public schools and into the juvenile and criminal legal systems. My younger daughter is a performing arts dancer and currently one of the choreographers of Dance Sanctuaries at the Kennedy Center, Washington D.C. As for the grandchildren? They are lovable and indescribable human beings. As the children I once taught here in Washington, D.C, would say, “Go figure.”
I began my teaching career in 1984 as a Special Education Teacher. For 14 years I poured my heart into students, later serving as Director of Instruction, Director of Residential Services, Dean of Students, and Director of School Culture. My final leadership role was as Senior Director of the Columbia Baptist Church Child Development Center. But during that season, the physical burdens of illness became, as the saying goes, “the straw that broke the camel’s back.”
For a decade—from 1999 through 2009—I battled an endless cycle of painful mouth sores, constant fatigue, weight changes, brain fog, and a cough that would not let me breathe freely. Doctor after doctor told me, “We don’t know what’s wrong, but here’s a prescription.” Enough was enough. I lived on Tylenol for pain, salt water rinses for sores, and Ensure shakes when eating was too difficult.
In 2008, I was finally diagnosed with lupus. Then in 2011, during a routine gynecological exam, my lab work revealed I was also HIV positive. Two diagnoses—lupus and HIV—both immune system disorders, both misunderstood, and both carrying stigma.
Doctors and researchers agree that HIV can mimic autoimmune diseases like lupus, confusing even the best-trained eyes (Kaliyadan et al., 2008; Virot et al., 2017). Some symptoms overlap so closely—rashes, swollen lymph nodes, anemia, autoantibodies—that one disease can hide behind the other (Mody et al., 2014; Liao et al., 2017). Even lab tests can mislead, sometimes producing false positives or confusing results (Lam et al., 2022; CDC, 2018). The medical world still debates how HIV changes the course of lupus—whether it quiets the disease, or makes it flare worse (Hax et al., 2018; Virot et al., 2017). What is certain is that both diseases together test not only the body, but also the spirit.
People often ask, sometimes directly and sometimes with silence, “How did you get it? Who gave it to you?”Truthfully, I once believed I contracted HIV from my second husband, whose life was tied to drugs and risky choices. But after nearly 12 years of living with HIV, I no longer live bound to blame or guilt. Responsibility is mine alone—and freedom is mine as well.
With treatment, my HIV became undetectable within six months. Undetectable means untransmittable. Yet treatment is not a cure, and HIV remains in my body. In 2019, after a lung biopsy, I received another diagnosis: Idiopathic Pulmonary Fibrosis (IPF), an autoimmune interstitial lung disease linked with HIV and Sjögren’s. IPF causes lung tissue to scar and stiffen, making breathing harder and harder. My pulmonologist told me: “All the symptoms you’ve carried for years can be explained by HIV’s deep impact on your body.”
The medicine I now take, OFEV, slows progression but brings daily side effects: diarrhea, nausea, stomach pain, loss of appetite, weight loss, high blood pressure. My Clinical Educator explained it this way: “OFEV is food absorbent—it needs a bed of food to lie on.” And that is where Food & Friends becomes part of my healing.
SNAP benefits, like many know, run out before month’s end. But through Food & Friends, I receive groceries-to-go, nutrition counseling, and meals tailored to my health. My Registered Dietitian, Jenn Krasilovsky, has taught me how to eat in small, frequent ways—even when appetite disappears—so my body can absorb the medicine that keeps me alive. Donors make this possible. Delivery drivers bring it to my door. And every bag of food says to me: “You are not alone.”
Food & Friends has lifted not only my food insecurity but also the anxiety and fear that come with it. Today, despite lupus, HIV, and IPF, I live healthier. I live with dignity. I live with gratitude.
So I testify tonight: Food & Friends delivers more than meals. They deliver hope, healing, and life itself—one meal at a time.
Thank you, donors. Thank you, Stan, my delivery driver. Thank you, Jenn. And thank you, Food & Friends.