DETROIT –
A crashing stock market can't crush the human spirit. That appears to be the moral of the AIDS Walk Michigan story. According to Barbara Murray, AWM's president, this year's walk program is on track to match last year's numbers. The total preliminary take: nearly $175,000.
"Given the economy, I am deeply pleased," Murray said. "Our economy sucks. It's not that it's just difficult, it's scary right now."
Staring fear in the face, a total of 2,500 men, women and children took part in the seven walks spread out across the state. Locations included Detroit, Ann Arbor, Bay City, Lansing, Flint and Grand Rapids. Most walks took place on either Saturday, Oct. 27 or Sunday, Oct. 28, though Ann Arbor's was actually held a week earlier, on Sunday, Sept. 21.
This year marked the 10th anniversary of AWM's Detroit walk, which took place on Belle Isle. Murray was on hand to greet the walkers Saturday morning, along with Renee McCoy, director of the HIV Program of the Detroit Department of Health.
"For 26 years, we've been fighting this disease," McCoy told the crowd. "For 26 years, we've been trying to get rid of it."
McCoy spoke of the changing face of AIDS in Michigan.
"When I started working with this, black folks represented 24 percent of the infected," she said. "Today, it's over 50 percent, and 61 percent in metro Detroit.
"If you are tired of people dying around you, that's why we're here," McCoy continued. "Every step you take is a step against HIV/AIDS. We are gong to move out HIV/AIDS. If you're not ready to move HIV and AIDS, you need to move on and go fish by the river."
Though the walk was in its tenth year, it was Gregory Bell's first. The Detroit resident said he came out to send a message. "It's good to support and help bring awareness that it's not only a gay men's disease, it's a people's disease," he said.
For Kyla Moore, an intern with Community Health Outreach Workers, the walk is an annual tradition. "It's a way for the Detroit community to show their support and that we care about HIV," said Moore. "It's a big issue."
While the Detroit walk is traditionally the largest of the seven walks, the Motor City will have to settle for second place in dollars raised this year. The Bay City/Saginaw/Midland walk, organized by Tom Brubaker of Sacred Heart Rehabilitation Center's BASIS program, takes first place honors this year.
"I'm so proud of Tom Brubaker I could just blow a horn," said Murray.
Brubaker helped garner media attention for his walk by bringing in Jeanne White-Ginder, the mother of the late Ryan White, for whom the Ryan White Care Act, the United States' largest federally funded program for people living with HIV/AIDS, is named. White-Ginder spoke at a luncheon at Saginaw Valley State University on Sept. 26.
"She is just a knockout of a speaker," said Murray, who attended the luncheon. "She was amazingly down to earth, kind of an everyone's mother kind of person."
White-Ginder's appearance helped the Bay City walk pull in a record $45,250, besting the Detroit walk by about $7,000.
"This is an empowerment walk for the agencies that participate," Murray said. "What I mean by that is that these are unrestricted dollars for these participating agencies, many of which live primarily through grant funding, which is very restricted. Unrestricted dollars give you a little more room to initiate a project you might not be able to do otherwise, or to add a piece to a grant funded program."
Such funds are more important than ever in this economy, where many non-profits are having great difficulty securing grants.
"Many of us have lived for the last four or five years with flat funding, in terms of our government funding," Murray said. "Unrestricted funding is like the oil that turns the wheel that has to do the turning. Not to mention that I still think walks are fun."
Other walk totals include Grand Rapids, $30,950; Ann Arbor, $18,200; Lansing, $17,000; Flint, $12,500; and Northern Michigan, $12,200.
"I'm a happy president of AIDS Walk Michigan," Murray said of the numbers. "I'm very pleased."
To learn more about AIDS Walk Michigan, visit http://www.aidswalkmichigan.org.
