|
LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT
Craig R. Miller
AIDS Walk Founder
Since creating the world's first AIDS Walk in Los Angeles in
1985, Craig R. Miller and his colleagues at MZA Events have
raised more than $300 million for the fight against AIDS in
cities throughout the United States. In 2006 alone, the
MZA-produced AIDS Walk New York, AIDS Walk San Francisco,
and AIDS Walk Los Angeles generated more funds than at any
point in each of their 20+ year histories. These
record-breaking achievements stand in stark contrast to
the virulent downward trend in fundraising for the domestic
HIV epidemic. Craig has also organized many successful
AIDS Walks in cities such as Atlanta, Boston, Chicago,
Denver, and Ft. Lauderdale.
Always pursuing new ways to be effective, Craig formed
AIDS Community Action Foundation (ACAF) in 2004. The Foundation's
mission is to help further reinvigorate the sagging response
to the U.S. AIDS epidemic by funding cutting-edge AIDS activism
like that of the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project
(CHAMP) and the Crystal Meth Working Group.
Throughout his life, Craig has found ways to meld his
work with his passion. In his early 20s, he was California's
youngest manager of progressive political campaigns, earning
the respect of veteran members of the U.S. Congress, including
Rep. Howard L. Berman and Rep. Anthony C. Beilenson, for his
ability to guide long-shot campaigns to victory.
At the time the first AIDS cases were documented,
Craig felt an urgent need to confront this public health
crisis. He was outraged at how this emergency was being
ignored, or worse, by most public officials. So, in 1984
he turned his attention to raising money for AIDS organizations
in the hope of helping to fill the gap left by the government's
negligible response to the epidemic.
Immediately following the inaugural AIDS Walk Los Angeles —
which astonished observers and organizers alike with its size and
results — GMHC and other AIDS organizations called on
Craig to help in their cities. Within the next 2 years, he
founded AIDS Walk New York and AIDS Walk San Francisco. As
Rep. Berman recalled in a recent L.A. Daily News feature story
on the AIDS Walk movement, "Craig put all his political skills
to work on this cause and that's what it needed. It needed a
guy who understood mobilizing and organization to put the AIDS
issue on the map."
In recent years, Craig has become a devoted student of Zen
meditation. He is deeply thankful to his teachers at Santa
Monica Zen Center, as well as to Village Zendo, where he practices
when in New York City. "When one manages to quiet things down,"
Craig says, "the next right action becomes all the more apparent."
© 2007 Gay Men's Health Crisis |
home 
