Donations are still being accepted: To make a donation, please visit the AIDS WALK for LIFE Vancouver website.
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British Columbia, Persons With AIDS Society
24th annual Scotiabank AIDS WALK for LIFE makes final trek through historic Stanley Park route
Emerging needs in the HIV/AIDS community inspire change
VANCOUVER, BC: Participants in the Scotiabank AIDS WALK for LIFE--Vancouver's longest operating charity walk--will follow the event's well established route through Stanley Park for the last time today, September 20, 2009 from 11am-3pm. Over 1000 volunteers, teams, businesses and individual walkers are anticipated to raise $350,000 to mark this important milestone and to support the changing needs of British Columbia's growing HIV/AIDS community.
"Since last year's WALK, our membership based has jumped from around 4,600 to nearly 4,700 members," explains Glyn Townson, Chair of the BC Persons With AIDS Society (BCPWA). "While we're encouraged that people are accessing our services, we're painfully aware that infection rates are rising in our province. We are committed to increasing public awareness of our cause by taking the 2010 WALK into the busy streets of Vancouver, where the significance of this disease cannot be ignored."
BCPWA's members account for just a portion of the estimated 13,500 HIV-positive individuals living in BC, many of whom remain undiagnosed. Advances in drug treatments mean that those who are diagnosed are experiencing the disease on very different terms than when the WALK began in 1986.
HIV-positive individuals are now able to live long, healthy lives if they have sustained access to a full range of proper health care," says Townson. "BC's Medical Services Plan does not cover that range. All proceeds raised by the WALK in Vancouver become part of BCPWA's Complementary Health Fund (CHF), which reimburses poorer Society members up to $55 each month for supplementary health care costs. Without these funds, many of our members cannot afford such health basics as vitamins and bottle water."
BCPWA is currently working wtih the Vancouver Board of Parks and Recreation to design a more visible route for future WALKs, which will connect in part to the Vancouver AIDS Memorial at Sunset Beach. Though the new route is yet to be confirmed, BCPWA believes that this change will strengthen the WALK's message.
"British Columbians need to know how relevant HIV/AIDS is to our province, in that this disease creates risks for every one of us," stresses Townson. "By taking the WALK to the streets next year, where we can be seen and heard by the city at large, that message should ring clear."
BC Persons With AIDS Society
The British Columbia Persons With AIDS Society (BCPWA Society) is dedicated to empowering persons living with HIV disease and AIDS through mutual support and collective action. It is Western Canada's largest AIDS organization with a membership of more than 4,600 HIV-positive individuals.
Post submitted by Lee Down, One Man Can & OMC Social.
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