Back in the early 1980s, when Wendell Price was tending bar and running a nightclub in Dallas, Texas, his friends began dying of AIDS. “These were people I worked with – people I knew and cared about,” he says.

Price sold his profitable nightclub and eventually settled in Austin, but he continued to think hard about how to stop the spread of the mysterious killer. In the mid 1990s, with money to work with and a passion for AIDS education and prevention, he got in touch with Charlie Stokes, executive director of the newly formed CDC Foundation.

Together, Price and Stokes hammered out a plan for the Price Fellowships for HIV Prevention, a program that aims to build relationships between government and nongovernmental organization (NGO) leaders to improve HIV/AIDS prevention. Each year, the program brings three NGO leaders to CDC to spend a month working side-by-side with CDC scientists to learn about HIV prevention at the national level and exchange ideas about important HIV/AIDS prevention issues.

“I’m probably more proud of the Price Fellowships than anything I’ve ever done,” says Price. “People always thank me, but all I do is write checks. It’s the Price fellows who are out there helping so many people with their work.”

To date, more than 25 Price fellows have completed the program, and all have come to CDC to focus on specific projects and special interests that impact their communities. “Fellows find out that CDC isn’t just a faceless bureaucracy,” says Price. “They build relationships, and walk away knowing people they can contact when they have problems they can’t solve or need resources they don’t have.”

The Price Fellowships represent an important milestone in the CDC Foundation’s history because the program was established as a result of one of the Foundation’s first individual gifts. “One of my greatest hopes is that someone else in my position will realize that one person can do something to make a difference,” says Price. “I went into this project because of a feeling of frustration. I couldn’t just sit back and do nothing.”

Why he’s a hero:

“Wendell Price consistently ‘puts his money where his mouth is,’ rather than just speaking out with rhetoric. He has developed personal relationships with a lot of the Price Fellows and is so appreciative of the work that they do. The fellowship he developed with the CDC Foundation is important because it brings two extremes together - people on the frontlines of HIV/AIDS and CDC scientists who develop national policy and programs - which gives participants a broader perspective and increases understanding and trust between both sides.” - MAESTRO EVANS, CDC PROGRAM COORDINATOR, PRICE FELLOWSHIPS FOR HIV PREVENTION

How the Price Fellowships make a difference:

“Once I completed my Price Fellowship, my personal and professional opportunities began to grow in an amazing way. I cannot imagine a program that has been more effective in helping communities translate research into actual programs. I’ve been in the HIV/AIDS struggle for 20 years, and the Price Fellowship is the most significant professional experience I’ve ever had. I’m really encouraged that it continues to thrive and that the number of fellows continues to increase, because I know that means that communities are being better prepared to deal with the epidemic on their own streets.” - HARRY SIMPSON, 1996 PRICE FELLOW, DIRECTOR OF SUBSTANCE ABUSE SERVICES, COMMUNITY HEALTH AWARENESS GROUP, DETROIT, MICHIGAN