‘Hope Springs Eternal’
5k Fun Run & Walk
May 10, 9 a.m.
Main Pavilion of Decatur Square
$25 in advance, $30 at the event www.rungeorgia.com
Reading of 'The Normal Heart'
May 12, 8 p.m.
AIDS Memorial Quilt Building
637 Hoke St. NW
Educational Lunch on HIV Treatment
May 12, 11 a.m.
Holiday Inn, Decatur
130 Clairemont Avenue, Decatur
‘There’s Hope In Our Soul’symposium
May 14, 9 .m. to 2 p.m.
Hopewell Baptist Church
182 Hunter Street Norcross
‘AIDS Chronicles: Here to Represent’ screening
May 16, 7 p.m.
SisterLove, Inc. Mother House
1237 Ralph David Abernathy Blvd.
Action Cycling 200
Departs: May 17, 7 a.m.
Old train depot on Asbury Circle
(across from Means Hall) on the
Emory University campus
Returns: May 18
Barbeque, 5 p.m. to 7 p.m.
Even as AIDS experts start to rethink their approach to vaccines against the disease, they say there is still hope, and this week in Atlanta is filled with it.
The “Week of Hope,” which leads up to HIV Vaccine Awareness Day on May 18, begins with a 5k fun run on May 10 and ends with an overnight bicycle ride on May 17-18. The annual ride by Action Cycling Atlanta aims to raise more than $100,000 for the Emory Vaccine Center’s Hope Clinic, as well as increase awareness about the ongoing risk of HIV/AIDS.
The Emory Vaccine Center and its Hope Clinic, which conducts human vaccine trials, receive federal funds, but need more money for community outreach and other efforts. Paula Frew, Hope Clinic’s director of health communication and applied research, said the Week of Hope is vital to the clinic’s efforts.
“The problem with the federal funding is there is very lean funding for community education,” Frew said. “We really have to be creative in the end, and create funding for what we believe are important activities, and hence we have established other avenues.”
The week starts with the Hope Springs Eternal 5k walk and run, followed by a series of community forums, a film screening of “The AIDS Chronicles: Here to Represent,” a reading of activist-playwright Larry Kramer’s “The Normal Heart,” and The Action Cycling 200 bike ride.
“THE NORMAL HEART” READING features gay actors Peter Paige (Emmett from “Queer as Folk”), Dan Butler (Bulldog from “Frasier”), and Atlanta residents Amanda Bearse (Marcy from “Married with Children”) and Mitchell Anderson (Ross from “Party of Five”). Set in New York City in the 1980s, the semi-autobiographical play chronicles Kramer’s struggles as he worked to form the Gay Men’s Health Crisis.
Anderson moved to New York several years later, and he finds many parallels in the play to his own life.
“I actually graduated from college and moved to NYC in 1993, and the play was written about 1985, and it’s just such an evocative play and such a representative of the fear of that time,” he said.
Bearse said the questions Kramer raises in the play are still unaddressed today.
“That’s why this play is still so relevant, is that you hear some of these questions and they’re still relevant 25, 27 years later,” she said.
The play will be performed at the NAMES Project Center, where the AIDS Memorial Quilt is housed when not on display. Bearse said although it is not a full production, the actors will put forth their best efforts.
“The actors are all very dedicated to this and we are going to do our best,” Bearse said.
OTHER EVENTS IN THE WEEK OF HOPE include an educational lunch on May 12 and the There’s Hope in our Soul symposium at Hopewell Baptist Church in Norcross on May 16, all leading up to the Action Cycling 200 at the end of the week.
Teacher Michael Todd Wiggins helped create the fundraising ride after losing two close friends to AIDS.
“We thought there was a gap in funding specifically for AIDS vaccine research, so a group of about eight of us founded Action Cycling Atlanta six years ago,” Wiggins said. “We’ve just seen the ride grow. Last year, we were able to raise $75,000, and that put us over $300,000 in donations to the Emory Vaccine Center. We set $100,000 as our goal [for this year]. It is a stretch goal, and we’ll see where come out. I’m confident we’ll be able to make it.”
Tracy Bruce lost her husband to AIDS in 1994 and raised two HIV negative children. She serves as an AIDS Survival Project community advisory board member and said she volunteers for the Hope Clinic to support her children and unborn grandchildren.
“I would really hate to see anyone else come up with this disease, but it still happens,” Bruce said. “I would like to see my sons grow up in a world where they don’t have to worry about HIV or AIDS. I’m expecting my first grandchild this year, and I would like this child to grow up in a world that doesn’t know AIDS.”
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