Bay Windows - June 8, 2006
Ethan Jacobs, ejacobs@baywindows.com

"What you may not know is that your walking today, your raising money for AIDS Action, allows them to do the work that [AAC executive director] Rebecca [Haag] was just alluding to, because they're unrestricted dollars that allow them to go to the State House, to the White House, to Beacon Hill and to Capitol Hill to fight for the rights of people living with HIV and for those who don't need to get HIV," said Brooks.

The opening festivities also honored AAC's first executive director, Larry Kessler, who retired from the agency in April. Kessler thanked attendees for participating and spoke about those walkers from years past who have been lost to the epidemic.

"There have been over 1000 people with AIDS in the last 21 years who participated in this walk," said Kessler. "Nearly all of them are gone. Luckily today there are other people with HIV here today, and hopefully they will not be gone because we've made some progress. We've got better drugs. We've got better support systems. And if there's one place where you had to have AIDS, Boston and Massachusetts is the best place in the country in terms of the services and the support. That being said, however, we have to be careful not to rest on our laurels."

That message proved to be the guiding spirit of the walk and its accompanying 5K run, which fell on the eve of the 25th anniversary of the beginning of the AIDS epidemic. Boston Mayor Tom Menino told the crowd that while they have continued to stay active in the fight against AIDS, government funding has shrunk.

"It's been 25 years since we [were] first introduced [to] the devastating disease called AIDS. By being here today you are sending a strong message to the community that the epidemic is not over. But the government funding is not where it used to be. That's a regular thing today, folks. The government is missing. They are not home. They are not there to help out people any longer. That's why we must continue to fight against HIV and AIDS," said Menino. "And someday we'll see that we'll have a big celebration here, bigger than the Fourth of July celebration, because we will find a cure."

The walkers themselves did not rest on their laurels, raising well over $1 million for AIDS Action and marching through Boston on a misty grey morning that frequently threatened to turn into an all-out rain storm. WCVB meteorologist David Brown, who emceed the festivities, joked during the opening ceremonies, "My intention is to make sure that it doesn't rain," but in fact the wet weather never rose in intensity above a heavy mist.

Many of the walkers carried banners and signs reminding onlookers that despite the advances in treatment people are still dying from AIDS. The Boston Living Center's long-term survivor support group carried a banner containing names and photos of center members lost to the epidemic. Emerson Miller, who facilitates the group and works as the Living Center's prevention education coordinator, said one of his close friends who passed away recently was among the photos on the banner.

"It's not over yet, and for the people that can walk, they're walking, and for the people that can't walk, my friend over here just died, so we've got his picture on there. So it's still happening. This epidemic is still very much alive, and we need to keep doing this," said Miller, who said this year was his tenth AIDS Walk.

A contingent of 40 walkers from Span, Inc, a Boston-based non-profit that provides reentry services to prisoners in preparation to their release from jail, carried a banner with 20 colorful squares reminiscent of the AIDS Quilt, and April Robbins, Span's director of administrative services, said each square represents a client or staff members who died of complications from AIDS. She also said that in addition to the walkers in Boston there was a group of inmates from MCI-Plymouth who had donated the money they earned in prison to the walk and who were spending the day doing their own walk within the prison walls.

"They're members of Span or people who volunteer because they know that we're walking, they walk around the track that they have and they donate their money," said Robbins. She added that the squares on the banner represent only a fraction of the people connected to the program that have died of AIDS. "Both staff and members have made squares in memory of people they know or we know who we've lost to HIV and AIDS. Unfortunately we have more than just this quilt. Lots of people have been affected by it."

Beyond the walkers themselves there were also volunteers all along the walk route making sure the event went off smoothly and to keep up the walkers' spirits. Volunteers helped guide walkers along the route and passed out oranges, water and energy drinks to keep them going. Groups of musicians, from a five-person a capella outfit on Commonwealth Avenue to a lone saxophonist on the Massachusetts Avenue bridge to the Freedom Trail Band of Boston, which serenaded walkers at the end of the route, kept up the festive spirit of the event.

Among the volunteers this year were nine members of Gay Fathers of Greater Boston, who, along with some of their children, handed out oranges at the intersection of Memorial Drive and Mass. Ave. Mark Bastian, a member of the group who moved to Boston a year and a half ago, said he got the group involved after coming across the walk by accident last summer.

"I was biking on a Sunday last year and I like to volunteer, I volunteer with my kids a little, and I realized, I really wish I had been here to help out. So, trying to get us involved in more social things I said to the group, we should be doing this. It's giving back, because the AIDS Walk is such an important part of the community, and being in the forefront there's such an energy to it," said Bastian, who said that his own children, both in their twenties, were unable to make it to the event. He said Gay Fathers of Greater Boston also raised $600 to donate to the walk within their own group.

Kessler told Bay Windows he was happy to see a strong turnout for the walk 25 years into the epidemic.

"It's encouraging that we still have so many people, some for the first time and some for the 20th time. People generally have been touched by this, and the walk is a way that they get support too, even though they've lost friends and partners and kids," said Kessler.

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