Spring Break
CSU adds to AIDS quilt, honors victims worldwide
HEATHER HAWKINS
Issue date: 12/1/06 Section: News
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"Don't be afraid, be aware," reads one of more than 40,000 panels of the AIDS Memorial Quilt that commemorates the lives of people lost to AIDS.
"It's incredibly moving," said 26-year-old Lucas Walker, a community liaison and program assistant at the Northern Colorado AIDS Project. "Each panel is so detailed and specific to the person it's memorializing."
For World AIDS Day today, members of NCAP and numerous CSU organizations made small panels and ribbons to add to the quilt.
CSU fashion merchandising students sewed the individual panels together, creating a 3-by-6-foot memorial ribbon, said Shauna DeLuca, the interim coordinator for International Education.
The quilt panel will be on display from 6 to 8 p.m. today during a vigil in the Lory Student Center Art Lounge. Names of Colorado residents who lost their lives to HIV will be read at the vigil in addition to four short presentations, live music and lighting of candles, DeLuca added. People who have lost a family member to AIDS may sign the panel.
"(The quilt is) something very personal for every person who participates because they are creating their own memorial for their loved one," DeLuca said.
The Names Project Foundation started the quilt in 1987 "to foster healing, heighten awareness, and inspire action in the struggle against HIV and AIDS," according to its Web site, www.aidsquilt.org.
Eight individual panels are sewn together to make 12-foot square blocks that are displayed across the globe. The blocks, made by families, friends, schools, agencies and medical centers, can be viewed on the quilt's Web site.
NCAP and CSU have hosted quilt blocks three or four times since 2000, although none are currently in Colorado, Walker said.
"It's incredibly impressive," he added. "There is a wealth of stories. It's a real work of art."
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