October 3, 2001
AIDS Walk step toward a solution
150 attend fourth annual walk in Traverse City
By Carol South
Herald contributing writer
Brothers, brothers-in-law, sons and husbands. The motivations of the walkers at the 4th Annual AIDS Walk Traverse City held on Sunday shared a common theme: honoring lost or ill loved ones and preventing other families from experiencing the tragedy of AIDS.
"I walk for a lot of reasons, but mainly for my two brothers, Christopher and Tom," Patty Bauer said. "They both died of AIDS. My brother, Tom, died in 1985 the year the HIV test came out. Back then the disease didn't really have a name."
Holding a picture of her brothers, she said they were both young, gay men living in San Francisco, very happy and alive. Both stricken at the beginning of the epidemic, Bauer said her brother Tom was diagnosed on a Thursday and died on a Monday.
"Doctors didn't know what it was and didn't know how to treat it," she said.
Ignorance compounded ignorance when she returned to Traverse City after he died. Her employer asked her not to talk about what happened, fearful of this unknown illness and the fact that her brother was gay.
Her second brother also tested positive for HIV that year. He lived until 1996, just a few years before new drug treatments came out that extended the lives of many people with AIDS.
"Christopher lived a really good life," she said. "He worked all those 11 years in every way to help people with AIDS."
Now it is Bauer's turn - and the turn of 150 other walkers who turned out, giving up a piece of their Sunday afternoon to help.
Together the walkers raised nearly $15,000, which will be used by HIV/AIDS Wellness Networks in Traverse City and H.A.N.D.S. in Petoskey to provide support services to people with AIDS plus education and outreach programs. AIDS Walk Traverse City was one of a dozen AIDS Walks statewide raising money to help local communities deal with AIDS.
Support services can include helping individuals and families meet the cost of newer drug 'cocktails,' which can run up to $30,000-40,000 per year. Money from the walk could also be used to help pay for groceries, bills and basic care costs for people who may not be able to work, as people living with AIDS often have interrupted earnings due to illness.
With the population growth in the Grand Traverse region, additional money is needed to continue providing these services, said Jim Carruthers, executive director of the HIV/AIDS Wellness Network.
"We had 40 new people living with HIV move here last year but the funding stays downstate in the big cities," he said. "We do have great care networks up here and we usually don't say no."
The minds of many walkers and speakers were focused on terrorist acts of September 11 and the possibility of a war beginning soon. Carruthers said walk organizers were concerned about turnout but hoped people would remember to think local.
"While our country's focus is on the national tragedy, we cannot forget the other groups out there who help people in local communities," he said.
Sammye Stemper, co-chair of the Michigan HIV/AIDS Council, brought those events and deaths into the context of the AIDS epidemic. Acknowledging the tragedy of the thousands of people who died, he added that many families live with the tragedy of AIDS year after year.
"Every year, people still die of AIDS, many die in shame, many die in poverty and many die alone," Stemper said. "Take a minute to think about how many people still die of AIDS every year, in a country so rich and with so many medications."
Living with AIDS himself, surviving far beyond what even he expected, Stemper does count his blessings.
"We live in a truly blessed community and a truly blessed country," he added. "I know if I didn't live here I wouldn't be alive today."