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About Just out. (Portland, OR) 1983-2013 | View Entire Issue (Sept. 16, 2011)
18 aidswalk SEPTEMBER 16, 2011 WWW.JUSTOUT.COM Walk The Walk AIDS Walk Portland 2011 puts the “ a ct” in activism BY AARON SPENCER W hat would it take for you to donate $10 to AIDS Walk Portland? How about a sext? Michael Sorensen is betting on it. Well, not Sorensen personally— he’s offer ing a seat at a cocktail party for every $69—but he knows someone who is advertising sexts on Facebook for donations, and he’s all for it. “Facebook just gives you an opportunity to be creative,” says Sorensen, director of devel opment at Cascade AIDS Project,“and maybe creative in a not-as-professional way.” “People are going to th in k ,‘Oh yeah, that’s [him]— he’s kind of kooky that way,”’he adds. “H e’s not trying to get me to sleep with him, but he’s going to send me a sext.” In the fundraising game, you have to be ag gressively friendly, organizers at CAP say, and you have to use every tool in your belt. CAP, which works to prevent HIV infec tions and help individuals with HIV/AIDS, aims to raise $400,000 this year for its 25th annual AIDS Walk Portland, which makes up 10 percent of the nonprofit’s budget. CAP fell short of the same goal last year. The organiza tion expects turnout for the event to exceed 2010’s tally of 11,000 people, but it hopes those people will reach deeper in their pockets. “Tlie truth is it takes 11,000 people to make a statement in Portland and we’ve been doing that for 25 years,” Sorensen says. “Yet $400,000 is still such a small amount of money from this community.” For comparison, Sorensen points to the AIDS walk in Seattle, which exceeded its 2010 goal of $500,000 and is shooting for $600,000 this year. San Francisco’s recent AIDS walk raised more than $3 million. Be fore the recession, CAP had been able to raise k $600,000 in Portland. “Stepping up to walk is certainly laudable," Sorensen says, “but stepping up to walk and throwing five bucks in is definitively better, and stepping up to walk and throwing five bucks in and asking 100 o f your friends to throw five bucks in is fantastic.” Though the number of deaths from AIDS is nowhere near its peak during the 1980s and ‘90s— mostly due to the advent o f anti retroviral therapy— new H IV infections in Oregon have not declined in the past 10 years, according to the Oregon Office o f Dis ease Prevention and Epidemiology. An esti mated 5,791 people in Oregon are infected with HIV, and 70 percent o f those are men who have sex with men. But a breakthrough study released this year indicates that early treatment o f an H IV -in fected person with antiretroviral drugs can cut the risk o f I II V transmission to an unin fected partner by 96 percent. The study was funded by the National Institute o f Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “For the first time,” says Michael Kaplan, executive director o f CAP, “if we could get everyone to know their H IV status and get treatment, we’d have a clear path to basically ending this epidemic.” AIDS Walk organizers hope the community will mobilize for the cause this year and attend the event, held at Pioneer Courthouse Square. “There are moments that will bring a tear to the eye and moments that will have you smiling and beaming with pride at what the community is doing,” Kaplan says. A ID S Walk Portland 2011 takes place Sun., Oct. 2, beginning and ending at Pioneer Courthouse Square (S W Broadway a n d Yamhill). Walking, Doing, Winning y AIDS Walk Portland participants share what moves them “ I m ean, w hen you read Marla DeVyne: a b o u t AIDS in the new s it You’ve come a long way, baby seem s kind o f d ista nt, but here it w a s a ffe ctin g m e per Marla DeVyne, 38, was living in Virginia when she got a call that her friend had died o f AIDS. It was the first time a friend o f hers had died o f the disease, and she didn’t even know that he had it. “At that time my friends and I were really angry and upset about it,” she says, “but now it makes more sense because there’s the whole stigma o f people with HIV, and at the time there wasn’t a lot o f education.” DeVyne remembers telling her mother that her friend died o f AIDS. H er mom panicked, she says, sonally. It really op en ed m y eyes and e xp o se d m e to the reality of th in g s .” -MARLA D e VYNE C n w t> A O S I'm fc t >CAP Walk-in testing for guys into guys and told her to wipe down all o f the hard surfaces in the house. “She told me I could get it from the toilet,” DeVyne says. “It all seems kind o f funny or igno rant now, looking back.” Still, the death prompted DeVyne and many o f her friends to get tested. “W hen I lost a friend it really made me think about my life and some o f the risks that I had taken sexually,” she says. “I mean, when you read about AIDS in the news it seems kind o f distant, but here it was affecting me personally. It really opened my eyes and exposed me to the reality o f things.” DcVyrfe eventually left Virginia; she is transgen der and bisexual, and she says where she lived wasn’t M O N E B r o a d w a y • 5 0 3 . 2 5 7 . 0 4 8 8 • w w w . m o b ile w e s t p d x . c o m Clark County Safer Sex Supplies Wi-Fi while you wait1 r / Rapid HIV Testing ulta in 20 minutes ) When Tuesdays 11am-1pm Thursdays 4-8pm S I N C E y Where: > For more info: Harm Reduction Center 3701 East Fourth Plain Vancouver. WA 98661 Se habla esp< ( 360 ) 750-7964 cityguysclarkOcascadeairts org rruc ?bas de VIH para hombre Mobile West takes PRID m your car stereo.