THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1994, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Saturday, November 5, 1994 TAG: 9411050639
SECTION: LOCAL PAGE: B4 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: NORFOLK LENGTH: Medium: 52 lines
The annual Hampton Roads AIDS Walk for Life will wind through the downtown riverfront area Sunday afternoon with an expected 3,000 participants hoping to raise $100,000.
While money is sought to help the living, those who have died from AIDS will not be forgotten. A ``memory wall'' of photographs donated by friends and family will be fashioned and displayed at the fourth annual walk.
The fund-raising goal represents a more than 40 percent increase over the $70,000 raised last year and is more than three times as much as the $30,000 raised in the first walk in 1991.
``We are funding nine agencies now as opposed to the seven we funded last year,'' said Ginny Sealey, spokeswoman for the walk. And additional funds must be raised to match prior grants to area AIDS service agencies.
``Everything we are funding this year is medical care,'' Sealey said. The indigent-care programs serve adults and children, and some of the money will be targeted to helping women who have AIDS.
Women, especially minority woman, are one of the fastest- growing at-risk groups for HIV infection and AIDS. State officials say that the number of reported AIDS cases is growing in Hampton Roads and that the region may soon account for two-thirds of all of Virginia's reported cases.
Walk registration begins at noon at Harbor Park. The walk begins at 2 p.m. on a route winding along the riverfront behind the Omni Waterside Hotel, Waterside and through Town Point Park and back to Harbor Park.
Traditionally, the walk has wound into Ghent. But the city balked at the neighborhood route this year for fear that street closures might diminish attendance at Nauticus, next to Town Point Park.
``This route was developed by the police with the idea that it would not impede traffic to Nauticus,'' Sealey said.
``The city was very nice about allowing us free parking'' at Harbor Park, she said. But the route will be largely invisible except to passers-by, unlike the old route into Ghent and on the street.
In that sense, the walk will lose some of its impact as a public awareness effort, she said.
``We would like to walk in the street, and we would like to take it into Ghent,'' she said. ``We're not trying to prevent Nauticus from being a success, but we are disappointed at not being able to use the original route. It was much higher profile.'' MEMO: For more information on walking, volunteering or making a donation,
call 436-8250. by CNB