In 1983, a minister, a physician and four other young men met one day in the pre-revelry quiet of the Tender Trap, a popular gay bar in Shadyside. They'd come to talk about a mysterious new disease that seemed to be stalking gay white men.

Lake Fong, Post-Gazette Pamela Smith, right, of the Pittsburgh Outreach Care Collaborative, collects a sample from Angie Lane, 37, of the Hill District, as part of an HIV test yesterday at the Central Outreach Center in the Hill District. Click photo for larger image.

AIDS -- acquired immune deficiency syndrome -- had come to town, shadowy and ferocious, striking down men in their prime and pushing gays further into the dark closets of society.

The meeting, mostly of gay men, was the genesis of a grass-roots attempt to halt the growing menace. They gathered almost weekly in private homes in the city's East End. A network of gay barkeepers quickly spread the word. Advertisements and news stories drew people to meetings at the University of Pittsburgh. Fund-raisers were held in homes and bars.

The circle of six grew to a dozen and eventually ballooned to more than 50. By the mid-'80s, it had morphed into the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force, a group to comfort the afflicted.

The organization turns 20 this week, and for an agency that once operated out of a volunteer's spare bedroom, it has jumped in funding and stature, becoming one of the oldest and largest AIDS service organizations in the state.

The task force today has a staff of 37 and an operating budget of $1.8 million a year. It serves as many as 800 clients annually and touches 5,000 more through its prevention outreach. Last year, it received a $310,000 grant from the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to expand its prevention efforts.

Ron Cruikshank, a 52-year-old New York attorney, was there in the early days. Two decades ago, he lived in Shadyside and was a volunteer who opened his home for fund-raising socials.

"Sheer fright brought us all together," he said of the young professionals who set out to make a difference. "This was a terrible disease that nobody knew much about. We were frightened and willing to do whatever we could."

There was so much to be done. Not many knew much about AIDS and HIV, the virus that causes it, and the public wasn't always sensitive. For those who were sick, there were many social service needs. People were dying before they could get disability benefits. Families were abandoning their sons. People were too sick to work and were losing their homes.

The Rev. Louis F. Kavar, a United Church of Christ minister who lived in Wilkinsburg, offered his spare bedroom as the agency's first office. Kavar simply wanted a group to provide dignity to his friends who were dying.

"None of our existing organizations could deal with what was happening," said Kavar, and "we soon realized something larger was going on here."

In stepped Kerry Stoner, a key figure recruited to build the task force. A former English teacher turned bar owner, Stoner became the agency's first executive director in 1987, when it was still powered by volunteers.

With his charisma and business savvy, Stoner ushered the group through years of steady growth. First, there was legal assistance and the buddy program -- volunteers took clients to grocery stores, cleaned their homes and held their hands as they lay in hospice care.

Then he pushed for HIV testing and counseling, started transportation assistance and organized a food pantry, which offered foods that don't interfere with HIV drug treatment.

There were waves of grief, before the arrival of the drug cocktail, a pill regimen credited with prolonging life. Without it, some of the beloved staff and volunteers had to face their own HIV demons. Stoner himself died of AIDS in 1993.

Still, the task force must constantly cope with loss.

Alan Jones, a 14-year employee, began as a case manager and is now an outreach worker. Over the years, 160 of his clients have died. He once lost 13 in a week. Few of the clients he worked with when he started are living.

"This is a very, very tough job," said Jones, who, feeling depressed in 1999, left for seven months to get a break and still, on occasion, sees a therapist. "The epidemic is tragic."

In those early days, HIV/AIDS was painted as "a white male thing," said Cruikshank, and the agency was criticized as being slow to respond to the housing, transportation and individual needs of black clients.

Now, blacks and women living in poverty have the fastest-growing rates of HIV infection in the country. In 2003, African Americans made up half of all new HIV cases, and for the past two years, AIDS has been the leading cause of death for black women 25 to 34 years old.

The task force has responded by collaborating with African-American community groups to step up testing, education and treatment services.

Another challenge: Reaching young people, whose rates of infection are rising, particularly among gay men and women, and who, after 20 years of alarm, are burned out by HIV messages or are too young to grasp the pandemic's impact.

And, just as the agency was preparing to battle HIV fatigue, the news came out about a possibly more hostile strain.

Almost since its inception, the task force has dealt with populations on the fringe, those most poor and discriminated against.

"But now we're definitely seeing a difference in the face of our clients," said Kathi Boyle, who was named last summer as the first female executive director of the task force, explaining that more women and blacks are being hit by the virus.

The changing demographics mean the task force must grapple with the epidemic's widening racial gap and the drug addiction, poverty and lack of access to health care that may be fueling it.

The task force will have to battle for more funding, as well. Last year, it shut down its AIDS Walk because of declining interest and funding competition. Next year, the task force will lose half of the federal funding that supports some of its case management work.

The challenges have taken the task force back to its grass roots: the streets, corners, gay bars and youth centers where people are sometimes most at risk.

That's where we are more likely to reach people, said Jones, one of nine outreach workers.

"There is still so much stigma," he said. "We must begin to move out."