AIDS Walk Draws 17,000 : Supporters Raise a Record $3 Million to Pay for Food, Clothing, Programs

They came because people they knew had died from AIDS, because they wanted to show support for those with the disease, or, as Bill Hynes said, “to show what one person can do.”

Like many of the 17,000 who turned out in Hollywood on Sunday for the eighth annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles, Hynes, from Long Beach, joined in for the first time. In the past, Hynes donated $20 through someone else who made the 10-kilometer walk.

This time, the 29-year-old raised $200 for California’s largest AIDS benefit and said: “I decided I could walk myself.”

The record turnout for the walk-a-thon, which began and ended at Paramount Pictures on Melrose Avenue, brought in more than $3 million, the largest amount raised since the event began. The funds will be used by AIDS Project Los Angeles to provide food, housing, counseling, a toll-free hot line and other programs for people with HIV and AIDS.

A wide array of participants joined in--children and adults on roller skates, parents pushing babies in strollers, and a group of men in short skirts, padded tops and oversized wigs who called themselves the West Hollywood Cheerleaders.

As people walked along Beverly Boulevard, drivers honked their horns and waved in support. Some participants made makeshift headdresses out of balloons by tying several together. One man came with his parrot, and several brought their dogs.

“There’s a community feeling here,” said one participant, Tareef Shawa, 30. “It’s half walk and half parade.”

Sharlene Wills, a 44-year-old stenographer who is blind, walked with her German shepherd guide dog. The dog knew what to do, Wills said. “She followed the people.”

Some would-be politicians couldn’t resist the lure of a crowd. Morry Waksberg, running for Congress from Hollywood, stood in the middle of Melrose with a bullhorn, asking for votes. Larry Green, a tax preparer who said he plans to run for mayor of Los Angeles, marched around in a T-shirt imprinted with a larger-than-life picture of his face.

Clinton-Gore supporters handed out position papers, and vendors sold buttons with messages such as “Saddam Hussein still has a job. Do you?” and “Just Say Noe” to Dan Quayle. No Bush proponents could be found.

Since this was Tinseltown, celebrities on hand included actresses Sarah Jessica Parker, Marlee Matlin and Linda Lavin. “The next time we meet, please, God, it’ll be for the celebration we all want, of the cure” for AIDS, Lavin said to a cheering throng that had finished the walk.

Referring to the enthusiastic spirit of the crowd, Lavin added: “One of the gifts of this disease is that we are connected in ways we have never been connected before.”

Craig Miller, co-producer of the event, said the increasing turnout at the walk is due in part to “the fact that many more Los Angeles-area families are in one way or another being directly affected by AIDS.” When the walk began in 1985, 4,500 attended.

One walker, Anna Wilson of Castaic, wore a shirt on which she had written the names Ray, Larry, Ron, Shawn and Randy. They were friends who had died of AIDS, Wilson said, “just in the last two years.”

Miller also believes that basketball star Magic Johnson’s announcement late last year that he is HIV-positive contributed to greater awareness and support. More recently, he said, “I think we were helped by the hatred and bigotry displayed at the Republican convention. I think people felt a moral imperative to show they care.”