Tea began as medicine and morphed into a beverage of choice!
I don't quite remember when I fell in love with tea but I do remember the most 
Until recently I had never drank Peppermint Tea made with loose leaves. And Honestly, I will probably never go back. The freshness of loose Peppermint Tea cannot be denied. When I open the can of 
I love to read! Inside a book I escape into someone else's life. There is something wonderful about turning to the next page of a wonderful story. Something intoxicating about the smell of the book and the story it brings to life. Reading brings me joy, and these days with my health in the balance, I find solace in my books.
Educated, attractive, assertive and ambitious are just a few of the words used to describe Rae Lewis-Thornton. In 1986, during a routine blood drive visit at a Washington D.C. Red Cross, Rae received news of another word that would soon be used to describe her health and future. At the tender age of 23, Rae Lewis-Thornton was diagnosed HIV Positive.
Despite her present day status of having full-blown AIDS (ACQUIRED Immune-deficiency Syndrome), Rae Lewis-Thornton leads her own unending crusade to educate and challenge young and old audiences to take control of their own bodies, futures and health. Rae uses her life as an example that AIDS is a non-discriminatory disease. She challenges the most common myths and stereotypes surrounding who and how one can become infected with the HIV virus that most often results in AIDS and death. In doing this, she incorporates her own oratory skills, personal experiences and unyielding honesty to create and disseminate her critical and deadly message of her own day by day, personal destruction by AIDS.
Featured on the cover of the December 1994 Essence magazine, as well as numerous feature stories in Ebony, Jet, Emerge, O- The Oprah Magazine, Woman's Day Magazine, Glamour, WOW, Poz, Lifelines and HIV Plus magazines, Chicago Tribune newspaper, Chicago Sun-Times newspaper, Washington Post, Dayton Daily News, to name a few. Rae has been featured on several national television documentaries, news shows, and television specials, such as Dateline, CNN, Black Entertainment Television, (BET) and the Montel Williams Show. Rae was featured on NIGHTLINE with Ted Koppel in news articles entitled, “Rae’s Story,” AIDS: The Next Wave and AIDS At Twenty Years. The Oprah Winfrey Show had her on to share her story. Rae served as a contributing editor for WBBM-TV, a CBS-owned and operated television station for an ongoing series of first person stories on living with AIDS. She received an Emmy Award for her series.
Rae uses all forms of media to convey her message. In less than a year Rae
Lewis-Thornton has made her mark in Social Media. She is
the recipient of the British Academy Golden
Tweet Award in
Public Service for 2010 and The 2011 CBS Chicago Most Valuable Blogger in
Medical, Health and Fitness. She uses
Twitter effectively to continue her crusade to educate, reduce the spread of
HIV, as well as to challenge stigma and shame around HIV/AIDS. She held the first HIV/AIDS Tweet-up in the
US in July 2010 and is now taking her Tweet-up’s nationwide. In December 2010 Rae organized a Twitter Book
Club, RLT Reads. Along with Twitter, she uses both of her Facebook
pages as a daily platform to educate both on HIV/AIDS generally and her
personal struggle of living and managing HIV/AIDS.
Prior to Rae’s motivational speaking career, she was on her way to a promising political organizing career. Having served as Senator Carol Mosley Braun’s 1992 Senatorial Campaign Advance Coordinator, Illinois State Youth Coordinator for the 1988 Dukakis Presidential Campaign and National Youth Director for Jesse Jackson’s 1984 and 1988 Presidential Campaigns, Rae was forced to retire in 1993 as a result of her health.
In
2009 Rae launched a line of bracelets, RLT Collection that she designs and make
herself. Celebrities such as actress Sheryl Lee Ralph and Kim Coles, as well
as, Judge Glenda Hatchett and Dionne Warwick wear RLT
Collection.
