Did you know that 1 in 20 adults in DC has HIV, an infection rate comparable to that of Uganda?  When I first heard that statistic, it stopped me dead in my tracks.  So last Saturday I joined thousands of other people in the 24th annual AIDS Walk Washington.  The AIDS Walk is a 5K fundraising walk that benefits Whitman-Walker Clinic, a nonprofit, community-based clinic that provides health services to people in the Washington metropolitan area.

For the fifth year running, AU’s team “AU Fights AIDS!” was the largest in the event with 438 team members.  Altogether, AU Fights AIDS! raised over $12,000 for the Whitman-Walker Clinic.  One of my roommates, Julia, is involved with the HIV/AIDS Taskforce in a group on-campus called Women’s Initiative, so she helped coordinate the AU Team this year.

AU Fights AIDS!

Bright and early on Saturday morning, my roommates and I tumbled out of bed and went down to the Letts-Anderson Quad, where Student Government provided free breakfast for all of the walkers (most notably, there was Capri Sun, yum!).  Then all of the AU team members proceeded en mass downtown to the walk.  There were TONS of walkers and it was amazing to see that so many people of all ages cared enough about DC’s HIV epidemic to get up early on the weekend and do something about it.

My roommates! Me, Jeremy, Julia, and Kara

It was a gorgeous fall day and we got to walk down Pennsylvania Avenue to the Capitol, where there was some sort of Chinese cultural festival going on and we got to see some of the preparations for the One Nation Rally that happened later that day.  This was my third year doing the AIDS Walk in DC (I participated in AIDS Walk Wisconsin all though high school) and, as always, when the walk was over, I hopped on the Metro feeling proud of my friends, my school, and my adopted city for doing something good with our Saturday morning.  🙂

-Meredith