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By Rebecca Rakoczy, Special To The Bulletin
ATLANTA—A brother is sick; a best friend died. Just because
it’s right.
These are some of the reasons why members of different parishes in
the Atlanta Archdiocese participated during the 6.2-mile 10th annual AIDS Walk
recently. Under a brilliant blue sky in unseasonably warm weather, holding
their banners high in Piedmont Park, more than 12,000 people marched to raise
awareness and money for services for persons infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.
Their efforts raised just under $1.5 million for 15 separate
agencies who provide such services. The groups from the archdiocese who marched
were just part of about 100 different faith groups who walked in the event.
Our Lady of Lourdes parishioner Maria Trahan’s best friend
died of AIDS.
“She was raped at 16, but she didn’t find out she had
AIDS until she was at her deathbed,” Trahan said. Her brother also has the
disease, but is controlling it now through medications. Trahan was at the walk
with her three children, Bethany, Darryl and Darren. Her family was part of an
OLL group of more than 40 parishioners who had chosen to walk that day.
“We walk every year,” she added.
Darlene Ingram, a longtime OLL parishioner, was participating in
the walk for the first time. “It is a thrill to participate in this,”
she said. The walk is part of the parish’s AIDS ministry, which also
includes working at and supporting the Gift of Grace House, run by Mother
Teresa’s Missionaries of Charity.
More than 50 members of Immaculate Heart of Mary Church, Atlanta,
turned out for the walk, officially “christening” their IHM banner
made by Kathleen Gregory. Led by IHM co-chairs Sue Amsden and Kathy Parker, and
bolstered by the support of their pastor, Father Fred Wendel, the church’s
AIDS ministry has doubled over the past year.
Amsden started IHM’s AIDS ministry in late 1991. At first it
was a one-woman crusade to get the word out. “I have lost several friends
to AIDS and I felt that people needed to be aware of this disease and have
compassion ... there has to be some spiritual plan for them,” she related.
“Many people were dying alone and didn’t want their
families to know (they had AIDS) ... It was heartbreaking. I decided that I
owed it to my friends that have died—and to my two daughters—to be
educated and to be an advocate for these people.”
Through weekly bulletin reminders of the ministry, and through
successful collections, speakers and education, the “one-woman”
crusade has grown. Amsden credits IHM’s young people, and a gradual
lessening of prejudice against people with AIDS, with the new growth. Recently
they received their fund-raising figures from AID Atlanta, the main beneficiary
of the AIDS walk. The church raised $3,200, “three times as much,”
she says, as last year.
Her co-chair, Parker, shares Amsden’s vigorous vision for
AIDS ministry at IHM and for the church in general.
“It is important for the Catholic Church to be witnesses for
Jesus in the AIDS epidemic. The spiritual side of AIDS ministry must be
addressed,” Parker said.
“We are not letting this ministry die,” added Amsden.
“AIDS isn’t going away and it is affecting a lot more people than
just the gay male population.”
Parishioner Regina Sanford at St. Paul of the Cross Church in
northwest Atlanta got involved in the AIDS Walk in 1993. She found a group of
about five parishioners who made the walk with her. The next year when the day
came, no one else from her parish was there, “so I walked by myself.”
Determined that the parish would be more active, “I started
to put more effort into it. I just walk up to people and ask them to walk. I
ask my neighbors and my friends. You have to ask.” She sets up posters and
sign-up sheets outside the church after Mass.
When it comes to sponsoring her walk, “I tell them I
don’t accept under $5,” said Sanford, 62, who is retired and on the
pastoral council. She spends two months every year trying to recruit walkers
and sponsors.
This year, St. Paul of the Cross had 23 walkers and, for the
second year in a row, they have been named among the top 20 groups walking.
Last year they raised over $8,000, Sanford said, and they were the only faith
community in the top 20. This year they raised $7,475.
“I don’t know anybody personally who has AIDS, but at
any given time, it can affect anybody,” she said.
“People are so skeptical about letting people know if they
have AIDS,” she added, “we may have people in the parish.”
“Even if we don’t,” she said, “St. Paul of the
Cross needs to have an AIDS ministry.”
Sanford said she hopes that the parish, in addition to taking part
in the AIDS Walk, can begin a ministry of serving people, not just in the
parish but in the community, with HIV/AIDS. She has taken a course called AIDS
101 to learn about the illness.
“Being Afro-American and particularly in the last 5 years, it
talks about how AIDS in other racial groups is on the decline, but in the
African-American community it is on the increase, particularly among
women,” Sanford said. “We are a black parish. We have to get
involved.”
Next year’s AIDS Walk is scheduled for Oct. 21 at 2 p.m.
starting in Piedmont Park. |
