University junior Jasmine Zimmer-Stucky recently had a busy three hours involving more than 500 condoms. But not in the way you’re probably thinking.
Zimmer-Stucky – a general science major, the education and outreach coordinator for the ASUO Women’s Center and co-director of Students for Choice – used the condoms to make a skirt, which she will wear in tonight’s condom fashion show.
“It’s a pair of boy shorts underwear and then I just sewed (the condoms) on,” she explained. “It wasn’t actually that difficult; it took a lot of time, but it didn’t take a lot of skill.”
Sponsored by several student groups including the Cultural Forum and the Women’s Center, the fashion show is just one of the University’s events to recognize World AIDS Day.

“Eight thousand people a day die of HIV. That’s almost as much as three of the 9/11 disasters happening every day,” said Alex Goodell, a sophomore biology major and the HIV/AIDS coordinator of UO Students for Global Health. “That’s the statistic that stuck out in my mind the most.”
More than 33 million people around the world are living with HIV/AIDS, and every Dec. 1, World AIDS Day serves to raise awareness and focus attention on the global epidemic.
Since Monday, the EMU’s concourse has featured a timeline highlighting the history and spread of AIDS, though the other World AIDS Day events will take place today.
At 5 p.m., part of the Lane Community College jazz ensemble, Spectrum, will perform at the Lane County Courthouse, where Eugene Mayor Kitty Piercy will speak at a candlelight vigil.
At 7 p.m., there will be a reception in the EMU’s Adell McMillan Gallery for Oregon State University professor Clint Brown’s “The Plague Drawings,” a series of 21 charcoal and conté crayon drawings representing AIDS.
At 8 p.m. the condom fashion show will take place in the EMU Ballroom, where Zimmer-Stucky will wear her colorful condom miniskirt with a matching top and a pair of suspenders.
“It’s heavy and there’s not a lot of elastic,” she said, “I feel confident, but I’d feel really confident if I had a pair of suspenders.”
Following the fashion show, various student groups and the Tranny Roadshow, a group of transgender performance artists who tour the country, will perform skits meant to educate and entertain.
The event in the ballroom is free and more about raising awareness than raising money.
“Financial help is incredibly useful, but also awareness raising in our own community because AIDS is a disease that can affect anyone,” said Hollie Putnam, a junior art major who works as the Women’s Center’s public relations coordinator.
From 9 p.m. until 1 a.m., there will be a benefit concert at Campbell Club, a student co-op located at 1670 Alder St., featuring four local bands: the Blast Majesty, the Party Tigers, Superdream and The Water Tower String Band.
“What’s unique about the concert is … you can either pay $3 or buy one of our pins,” Goodell said.
Handmade by HIV-affected people in Zambia, the red ribbon pins are part of a fundraising effort through FACE AIDS, a national student campaign of which UO Students for Global Health is a chapter.
FACE AIDS raises money for Partners in Health, a Boston-based group dedicated to community-based health care around the world. PIH currently has projects in the Boston area; New York City; Madison, Wis.; Puerto Rico; Mexico; Guatemala; Russia; Peru; Lesotho; and Rwanda, where proceeds from the World AIDS Day event will go toward various medications.
“They train community health workers to create a sustainable health program instead of just sending doctors to fix all their problems,” Goodell said. “I think that’s really neat.”
Goodell said someone with AIDS can be treated for an entire year for $140, a seemingly immeasurable amount of money for many people in Rwanda. He added that many Rwandans with AIDS are often too sick and too weak to go to work, where they make roughly 50 cents a day.
For each ribbon sold, FACE AIDS, which started last year at Stanford University, will get matching grants from Stanford donors and private citizens throughout Silicon Valley.
Since its inception, FACE AIDS has raised $850,000, approximately $2,000 of which has come from the University. Goodell said the goal is to sell all 1,500 pins, which would amount to a total of $7,500.
“At the U of O, $5 (per student) would be $100,000,” he said. “With matching grants, that’ll almost be half a million dollars.”
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