Charitable organizations and community causes pop up all the time in Columbus, but it’s hard to imagine any of them happening so organically as Randy Sharma’s Project Zero: Ohio.

It took one tweet and a single email to launch the beginnings of a charity that would raise more than $5,000 for HIV/AIDS Awareness in just four short months – with the help of Columbus drag queen extraordinaire Nina West and local entrepreneur Steve Weaver, of the Candle Lab.

Sharma, a physician who says he sees patients in central Ohio with HIV on an “almost daily basis,” was taken aback by a recent patient who found himself caught between insurance and aid to pay for his medications and decided to do something about it.

“He didn’t have insurance, but he also made three to four times more than the poverty level, so he didn’t qualify [for federal and state aid],” Sharma said. “It was a wakeup call for me. What I found out quickly was there was a waiting list of almost 500 people in Ohio waiting for meds.”

“I reached out to Nina and she suggested checking in with Steve and he responded almost immediately with, ‘I’m in. Tell me what you need. We’ll talk later.’”

The trio settled on a clever plan to market locally-made products, the entire proceeds of which would fund the hope that “zero” patients go without medication for HIV or AIDS. Weaver and West created the Rainbow Candle, and launched it in July, featuring a prominent photo of West on the side. Rainbow Soap followed in November, a collaboration with Megan Green’s StinkyBomb imprint. Other local business like Union Café and Axis Nightclub have chipped in portions of their tips for the cause, and musician Will Reed will donate the money from sales of his album on iTunes through January 15th.

Sharma, who just five months ago had nothing like this on his radar, is now fully enveloped in the charitable spirit of Columbus, and expanding that reach throughout Ohio.

Does the initial momentum this project has acquired surprise you?

It was something I wanted to do, but I didn’t expect it to turn into this big thing. It was awesome. What made it amazing for me, and a little overwhelming, was the way that people hopped on board. We’re only four months in. It’d be easy to say, “Steve’s got connections, Nina’s got connections, and that’s why this happens.” But I think this is Columbus, I think there’s this spirit. It’s a great giving city. You realize what you need to do, and it drives you to come up with better ideas, and let more people give in ways they can, and it just feeds. The interest that people put in makes you want to work harder, makes you want to do a better job – and makes it more rewarding.

Besides just raising money and awareness, what have you found are the other auxiliary benefits of the project?

Part of the way we went into this was we wanted to introduce people to local businesses that were producing something. You know, we love Candle Lab; it’s a great product. StinkyBomb came around and we were like, “Wow, we really want to introduce people to this product, too,” and they wanted to work with us. And now we’re like, how can we expand this a little more with things locally? More bands, or anything else.

You, Steve and Nina all have incredibly busy schedules. What’s the drive behind putting in all these hours for the cause?

I think you get to a point where you realize that you’re fortunate to do what you do and you love what you do and you become part of this community – and that is what has happened with all of us. It gets to the point where you’ve got to give back when you see something that’s wrong. We’re all really active people; we don’t sit around and point fingers. It’s my pet peeve when people re-post something on Facebook that they don’t do anything about. They don’t tell you, ‘This is a problem, and here’s what you can do.’ It’s just, ‘Here’s a problem.’ That’s what happened here; we got this circle of people that feel the same way. You’ve got people in Columbus willing to throw themselves at something they believe in.

And to throw their business behind it.

It’s hard enough to be a small business owner as it is, so to spend your time when you’re already overworked, something like that … it says so much. Fortunately, we also have people like Small Business Beanstalk that help us if we need anything, maybe a couple of gift cards for a silent auction or something, which helps us connect with people differently and introduce [ourselves to] other businesses.

There seems to be a charitable fabric in Columbus, not just a disjointed network of scattered causes.

I couldn’t agree more. We’re fortunate to be a city that wasn’t affected as much by the recession. But we also have a very strong entrepreneurship, and a city where people want to think outside the box. They want to give to things that aren’t just the usual causes, and they come together. The way people give in Columbus is really unique – I don’t think you find that anywhere else very easily. It’s part of being a big city and a small city at the same time. We’ve got great organizations and big businesses that are still small enough that people can reach out to them, in terms of their employees. It’s special.

Can you point to a moment so far in this process that’s illustrative of the impact of Project Zero?

I have a friend who’s a psychologist, a guy that I’m really fortunate to know, an amazing guy. I spoke to him about the project and dropped off a candle for him. His wife saw it and said she already knew about it. That was within a month. It was really amazing to think that something we had done within a few weeks that had really come together very organically, very spontaneously, has come together where somebody that lives in the suburbs of Columbus knew exactly what it was, and knew what the cause was. That’s what we wanted: to raise awareness. This has taken off so far so quickly, it’s ridiculous. We’re blown away.

To get involved with Project Zero: Ohio, visit www.projectzeroohio.com. The Rainbow Candle and Rainbow Soap are available for purchase at any of the Candle Lab’s four locations, or by visiting www.thecandlelab.com.