CRUSAID was a British charity[1] that provided financial assistance during the AIDS epidemic to institutions and to people suffering from HIV/AIDS.
[citation needed] CRUSAID managed many performance events in London like "Dance for Life" that included prominent actors, musicians, dancers and theatre producers.
Requests included being rehoused, buying a washing machine to help manage night sweats or diarrhoea, receiving a travel grant to assist with a hospice stay.
[citation needed] A topic of discussion was a recent fundraising event to buy a dishwasher for the HIV ward at St Stephen's Hospital in Chelsea.
In June 1986, CRUSAID was launched by its first Chairman, Jeremy Norman, at a reception at Leighton House in London with over 200 people attending.
[citation needed] In his speech, Jeremy Norman warned that the "gay plague" happening in America would soon come to our shores; in consequence a large percentage of those present would be dead within a few years.
In 1987 CRUSAID obtained a grant for three years of funding from The Monument Trust to employ a staff member and rent an office.
The Board included prominent Gay men like the Jewish lawyer Andrew Stone partner of Lord Etherton.
The initial CRUSAID mailing, with an invitation to the reception and announcing the launch, met with a very sympathetic response, and income in the first year exceeded £100,000.
The Kensington and Chelsea Hospital offered to initiate the first day-care centre in the United Kingdom for the treatment of HIV; CRUSAID funded it.