This Saturday, the HIV Alliance will hold its 14th annual River Walk. The “walk for life” will be a jaunt through Eugene promoting awareness and support for the alliance while catching some great outdoor performances.
Entertainment will be held at four different locations along the route. A steel drum and marimba group called Island Jammin’ will begin playing at 9:30 a.m. at Alton Baker park until the walk starts at 10:30 a.m. As people go over the DeFazio bridge, artist Cole McBride will be playing classical guitar. The walk will continue into the downtown and through Saturday Market. It winds back to the River’s Edge Plaza where Jackass Willy will be playing rockabilly and bluegrass.
Then it’s on to the Autzen footbridge where the River Gypsies will perform. The walk will finish where it began at the Alton Baker park where Kutsinhira, a marimba and percussion band, will perform until 12:30 p.m.
“There is a lot of entertainment going on in those four places, plus what Saturday Market provides, just in their own inimitable fashion,” David M. Bernstein, River Walk 2000 coordinator said.
Darnell Mandelblatt, development director for the HIV Alliance, said that the goal of the walk is to spread the word that the agency exists and to encourage people to join in and be part of the solution.
“It means stepping up to an awareness of what it’s like for other people to live with HIV. It doesn’t make them lepers, but it is a disease to be lived with and that our community can support them through awareness,” Mandelblatt said.
The HIV Alliance has been around since 1985 when it was called Shanti. According to Bernstein, it is the second-largest HIV support agency in Oregon. They provide a variety of services for those suffering with HIV or AIDS. They provide full-service case management, medical consultation and health care.
There is a food program and a needle-exchange program, and a full education and prevention department that offers programs like Speakers in the Schools, where HIV-positive speakers go to high schools and middle schools, putting a face on HIV. The Acorn Center, another program of the alliance, provides meals and emotional and social support for those suffering with HIV.
“It’s an on-site facility where meals are served. It’s not like a meals on wheels thing. People come in and eat family-style,” Bernstein said.
The theme of this year’s River Walk is to fight complacency and spread the message that HIV and AIDS have not gone away.
“It’s why we have pushed to get our route downtown,” Bernstein said. “To heighten visibility and to have more people see us and be able to realize we’re around and that we’re working and that this disease isn’t over by a long shot.
Jim Shoemaker, client service director for the HIV Alliance, said that in recent years, the walk has been a success because of the increase in community involvement.
“More and more we’re getting a greater cross-section of the population to walk,” Shoemaker said. “That makes it clear that it matters to everybody.”
Bernstein said people don’t realize that agencies like HIV Alliance are serving more people than ever. He said that he thinks the complacency is due to the new advances in treatments.
“I think a lot of it has to do with the fact that there are drugs that have changed HIV from an absolute terminal disease to one that is more likely a chronic, manageable illness. People stop dying,” he said.
The crisis was viewed as death, not as disease, according to Bernstein.
“The crisis is the disease itself. Transmission rates continue to go up.”
Bernstein added that less than 10 percent of the global HIV population has access to new drugs.
“In the rest of the world — in Africa, Asia and India — they are dying at ever increasing rates and they are transmitting at ever increasing rates.”
Bernstein said that centers like the HIV Alliance are busier than ever because of lack of funding from the government.
“We have to serve more people with constantly failing federal and foundational support,” Bernstein said.
He said that people need to see the walk because they can too easily forget that the AIDS crisis continues.
“It is a horrible disease to live with. It has terrible side effects. The medications can be horrifying and debilitating and damaging to the system. We’re nowhere near a cure and very few can safely say that they don’t have to worry about this disease anymore — they do,” Bernstein said.
He said that while AIDS sufferers might be dealing with the disease just fine today, tomorrow it might mutate into a form that is repellent to one of the drugs that they are on.
He said that the drugs often cause side-effects including heart circulation problems and diabetes.
Bernstein is optimistic that this year’s walk will be a success.
“If we get decent weather, there is a good chance that this will certainly be bigger than the last few,” he said. “I think that there is a lot of renewed excitement with the changes and the going through town.”
Mandelblatt said that she believes that events like River Walk will continue because of continued support by the community and by those inside the HIV Alliance.
“We’ll be here for life and we’ll be here for River Walk,” she said.
Those interested in raising money for the HIV Alliance can fill out a sponsor pledge list. Contact the alliance at 342-5088 for a pledge sheet. Organizers stressed that anyone is welcome to walk to show support for the cause, with or without pledges.