GMHC and the AIDS Walk San Francisco Foundation are partnering once again this year to hold AIDS Walk: Live at Home on Sunday, May 16. In addition to New York and San Francisco, this year’s event will expand to collaborating cities including New Orleans, Austin, Milwaukee and Seattle. Funds raised will benefit GMHC, Vivent Health, AIDS Walk San Francisco Foundation, Crescent Care, and Lifelong.
With live segments planned, including Viewing Parties from New York’s iconic Central Park Boathouse and the National AIDS Memorial Grove in San Francisco’s Golden Gate Park, AIDS Walk: Live at Home will be a moving and powerful experience, featuring superstar performances and appearances. Last year’s participants included Bette Midler, Gloria Estefan, Patti LaBelle Matt Bomer, Vanessa Williams, Laura Linney, Glenn Close, and Alan Cumming. This year AIDS Walk: Live at Home will be broadcast on ABC7/KGO-TV in San Francisco and streamed live on CBSN and aidswalk.net.
“AIDS Walk: Live at Home will reflect the strength and individual character of all six landmark events and the communities that embrace them year after year,” said Kelsey Louie, CEO of GMHC, Isaac Rodriguez of the AIDS Walk San Francisco Foundation, and Craig R. Miller, Founder of the AIDS Walks in New York and San Francisco among other cities.
“Vivent Health is pleased to join with the nation’s most visible HIV/AIDS fundraising events,” said Michael Gifford, president and CEO at Vivent Health. “Through partnership with AIDS Walk Wisconsin and AIDS Walk Austin – both part of the Vivent Health family – we will connect in our shared goal to end HIV/AIDS and the racism, homophobia, sexism, stigma and poverty that perpetuate it.”
“In Washington State and around the country, we continue to see Black, Latinx and Indigenous communities disproportionately impacted by new HIV cases,” said Claire Neal, Lifelong CEO. “We are grateful for the nearly four decades of support from our community to deliver comprehensive care for our neighbors living with HIV and other serious illnesses and are excited to work hand-in-hand with like-minded organizations throughout the nation to spread awareness that racism remains a public health crisis for so many.”
“This is a brilliant opportunity for us to participate in a wide-scale effort that brings attention to the HIV crisis that still looms in this country,” said Noel Twilbeck, CEO of CrescentCare in New Orleans. “Together, our voices will be heard as one. With medical advances, access to high-quality health care, prevention education and community outreach, HIV eradication is within our grasp. It is up to each of us not to lose sight that we can and must end the HIV epidemic.”
“Standing together as AIDS Walk: Live at Home from the National AIDS Memorial Grove could hardly be a more welcomed occasion, whether it be shoulder to shoulder or six feet apart; whether in person with us in Golden Gate Park, or in your living room in Oakland or Austin,” said John Cunningham, the Grove’s executive director.
“The AIDS Walk events in each of the participating cities have their own unique characteristics. But the clients we serve all face very similar challenges. It makes sense for us to come together as one community and to unite some of the nation’s most powerful and effective AIDS fundraisers from all regions of the country.” said Louie.
“In doing this work, we have been brought together by one pandemic even as we continue to fight another. The public’s recent revelations about racism, bias and hate in America are in fact at the heart of what AIDS Walks have been working to expose, confront and change for decades.” said Miller. “Who gets healthcare? How quickly? Whose needs are addressed? Who gets heard? We have long stood, walked and marched to oppose the racist, sexist, homophobic and transphobic disparities that persist in America and throughout our healthcare and criminal justice systems. Protecting people who have been singled out, harassed, scapegoated and underserved is what we do. It is our legacy and it remains our commitment.”
To sign up as a walker or donate to AIDS Walk, visit ny.aidswalk.net.
