AIDS Walkers Unite
By Jessica lafferty
Broadside Staff Writer

Last Saturday, over 10,000 people participated in the 14th annual AIDS Walk Washington. The largest single-day fundraiser ever held in the District of Columbia, this event was an effort to provide funding for the many HIV/AIDS services the Whitman-Walker clinic provides to the Washington, D.C. Metropolitan area.

Walkers were required to raise at least $25 in order to participate in the event. They included individuals who walked for personal reasons as well as a variety of organizations, from U.S. Airlines, to FightAIDSatHome.org, a computational research project that uses the idle resources of PC computers to support AIDS research via the Internet.

The walk began in four different locations in the D.C. Metropolitan area: Meridian Hill Park, Anacostia Park, Stanton Park, and the Pentagon, each representing the four regional centers of the Whitman-Walker clinic in downtown D.C., Anacostia; Northern Virginia and suburban Maryland.

Arlington resident Dale Roberts, owner of the Java Shack, a business that sponsored a team which raised close to $15,000 in this year's AIDS Walk Washington, believes participation in the annual charity event is important because "the D.C. area is the fastest growing metropolitan area in the U.S. for HIV/AIDS."

According to the AIDS Walk Washington Website, Washington D.C. has the highest number of AIDS cases per 100,000 people. That is nine times the national average. Almost 10,000 people in the Washington D.C. area are infected with HIV/AIDS and it is estimated that the 14,000 to 17,000 who have the virus do not know they are infected.

Established in 1973, the Whitman-Walker clinic is a volunteer, community-based organization that touches the lives of two-thirds of the people living with HIV/AIDS in the D.C. area. They provide medical treatment, housing, legal services to victims of HIV/AIDS and sponsor educational programs on HIV/AIDS prevention throughout the D.C. area's school and businesses. "The clinics do a great job, but they need a lot of support and government funding isn't there for them like it should be," said Roberts.

In order to reach out to HIV/AIDS victims in the metropolitan area, the clinic depends on the efforts of volunteers donating more than 400,000 hours of service in order to provide support and funding for the growing number of AIDS cases each year.

"For 14 years now, AIDS Walk Washington has raised money that is crucial in caring for people living with HIV/AIDS throughout the Washington area. Today, Whitman-Walker is caring for more people than ever before and we have never needed these dollars more," said Cornelius Baker, executive director of the Whitman-Walker clinic.

Among the volunteers represented at this year's AIDS Walk Washington were members of the Mason community. Individuals and members of various organizations on campus signed up to participate in the event through Mason's Center for Service and Leadership. According to Heather Hare, assistant director of the Center for Service and Leadership, about 20 students, including representatives from the sorority Alpha Phi Omega and Mason's chapter of the NAACP participated in the event as volunteers.

Early Saturday morning, the volunteers arrived at the Pentagon Metro station and at designated sites along the way to the meeting spot within the Pentagon parking lot, to ensure walkers in the event knew how to get to specific starting locations. During the walk they acted as marshals, ensuring safety between walkers and traffic.

For third-year participant Nikkia Anderson, a student program assistant with the Center for Service and Leadership, the AIDS Walk Washington remains an important link to promoting awareness about the disease.

"I think people really need to be aware of something that doesn't necessarily affect them, but affects their community," she said.

The walk culminated in a ceremony at the Washington Monument, where walkers who raised at least $150 participated in a human formation of the AIDS ribbon. Walkers wearing red ponchos completed the formation, which was shown on tele-cameras to the crowd on the grounds surrounding the Washington Monument.

"It was a very powerful event," said Hare.

Walkers then heard from Sandy Thurman, director of the White House office of AIDS policy, on the importance of raising awareness to fight HIV and the need to continue focusing on prevention. The Whitman-Walker clinic was also presented with a proclamation from the Washington D.C. city council, honoring the clinic's commitment.