20th AIDS Walk Tops $3 Million

They walked with aching feet, some with tears in their eyes, others wearing T-shirts bearing the names of loved ones who had died from AIDS.

Thousands of people participated in the 20th annual AIDS Walk Los Angeles on Sunday, trekking more than six miles through West Los Angeles to raise more than $3 million for HIV and AIDS programs in Los Angeles County.

With as many as 950,000 Americans infected with the virus that causes AIDS -- and 40,000 new infections each year -- walkers and event organizers said the 10K walk tries to keep an important issue in the spotlight.

“We have made progress, and there is great hope for the future,” event founder Craig Miller said. “But if we become less vigilant as a society, we’re never going to achieve that hopeful future.”

Sunday’s event showed that many people are paying attention, despite concern among health professionals that human immunodeficiency virus and acquired immune deficiency syndrome have fallen from the national agenda, he said.

Organizers estimated that more than 25,000 people signed up for the march, even though it rained in the morning.

Miller, 45, organized the first AIDS Walk in Los Angeles in 1985, after watching dozens of friends unsuccessfully fight the disease. The first event drew 4,500 people and raised $673,000.

He then established AIDS walks in New York and San Francisco. Leaders in at least six other cities, including Seattle, Atlanta and Chicago, followed.

Gays and lesbians mostly supported the first AIDS Walk, Miller said, but since then “support from everyone else has increased.”

Sunday’s event brought children on scooters, sorority sisters, church groups, Playboy bunnies and teenagers with purple hair. Many of those who walked knew someone who had died of AIDS. Others who walked were living with it.

This was Gregory Freeman’s 18th year at the AIDS Walk. He tested positive for HIV in 1986. On Sunday, Freeman, 45, wore an AIDS Walk T-shirt that one of his friends had worn in 1986, just months before he died from the disease.

“I’m part of the first wave,” Freeman said, choking up. “Virtually everyone I knew with HIV died.”

For many years, Freeman lived in fear. Medications and treatments were almost nonexistent, he said. He saw friends, one after another, die with no hope.

Now Freeman has hope, and the walk reinforces it every year: “I’m proud to do it; I have to.”

Raishunda Smith, 12, of Pacoima walked for the first time this year for her grandfather, who died a few months ago from AIDS. She wore his baggy gray sweatpants on the journey.

Toward the end, her legs hurt and she held onto a friend’s arm. But as she got closer to the finish line, well-wishers along the route cheered, “You’re almost there!” Noisemakers popped and horns blared. Raishunda kept going.

Jordan Paddock, 13, of Mar Vista crossed the finish line before his mother and her friends. He received a certificate and a sticker that read: “10 kilometers completed.”

Tired, he sat by a fence wearing an oversized turquoise T-shirt. On it, he had written with black marker, “In memory of Jeffery Abraham 1949-1995.” Abraham was Jordan’s uncle.

“He would be very happy,” Jordan said. “He would be very proud of me.”

Lisa Torrence-Hill walked for her brother, Herbert Torrence, 46, who is living with AIDS. Her brother, who was diagnosed with AIDS in 1986, usually walks too, but this year he became too weak to participate.

Torrence-Hill, 39, walked anyway, along with her husband and daughter. She wore a cardboard crown on her head, a gift from organizers because she had raised more than $2,000.

“They still don’t have a cure,” she said. “It hurts my heart.”

As they crossed the finish line a man shouted, “Good job. Thank you so much.”

Torrence-Hill’s husband, Jeffrey Hill, 42, replied, “We’ll do it again next year.”