Bruce House: More than a house

Candles in the wind
ACO and Bruce House team up, taking AIDS Walk 2001 in a new direction

Glenn Crawford, Capital Xtra!, August 17, 2001

Organizers of Aids Walk Ottawa 2001 have revamped and restructured this year's 5km walk in recognition of the first recorded cases of the disease 20 years ago. Mimicking the highly successful candlelit walk in Montréal last year, the Walk has been re-branded as the "White Night/Nuit Blanche" in which participants are encouraged to wear white as a symbol of mourning, wisdom and hope. Registered walkers will also be given candles.

This is the first year in which Bruce House, the non-profit agency providing housing and care to those living with HIV and AIDS, has taken part in the management of the event in conjunction with the AIDS Committee of Ottawa (ACO). Ron Chaplin, chair of AIDS Walk Ottawa and the Ottawa-Carleton Council on AIDS, is clearly pleased with the administrative changes. "I want to say that I'm very happy with how the walk is being organized this year. I've been involved since 1993… and over the last few years the Walk has not been well organized."

Jay Koornstra, the Executive Director of Bruce House, is happy to take on a larger role. "We feel honoured to be helping in our community. It was almost immediately recognized that with collective minds comes a synergy - a sharing of ideas and different perspectives - and I think the result of us analyzing could make the walk more effective."

"We have a goal of 800 walkers and a goal of $80,000," says Keith Duncanson, volunteer coordinator at Bruce House. "I want as many people as possible to be there, so I'd love to see a couple of thousand. We've seen the Walk stagnate over the last couple of years, but there seems to be considerable interest at this point."

Fundraising for AIDS is doubly important because more people are now living with the disease. Chaplin says he gets frustrated, particularly with the federal government. "There's been no new money allocated for community-based AIDS prevention workers, education workers or assistance work from the federal government for the last eight years." Koornstra agrees. "The commitment of the federal government financially in today's dollars is less than what was introduced 12 years ago by the Mulroney government. However, we are at double the infected rate."

Getting the message out that AIDS is still a force to be reckoned with is another important goal of the Walk. "There's a misconception that AIDS is under control, and it's not," says Koornstra. "As important as raising awareness and raising money to help us deal with the growing population of HIV-infected people, or the costs of prevention and education, we need to keep it in the forefront… keep it a current issue." Chaplin adds that "this is a disease that strikes a marginalized population, and we still have problems in the gay community getting the message through, especially problems dealing with the levels of sex education that people need. How do we get that message into the schools? We are finding a resurgence of infections among young gay men."

One of the big pushes this year is to get registration and team building done early. To facilitate this, the committee has created an online site, complete with online registration. Duncanson is excited about this new way to get pledges. "There's a way to actually do cyber-pledging and to track your team's progress in terms of your pledges, and we're hoping it will bring some sort of friendly rivalry between different teams themselves and sort of egg each other on."

The Walk will take place on Saturday, Sept 22 at 7PM followed by an after-walk reception tent at the Festival Plaza (corner of Elgin and Laurier) sponsored by Molson Canada. Proceeds from this year's AIDS Walk will go to ACO and Bruce House, as well as to 10 other local partners of the event, including the Wabano Centre for Aboriginal Health. To find out more about registering or becoming a volunteer, you can visit www.aidswalkottawa.ca, call Walk-Line at 238-2124, or contact either the AIDS Committee of Ottawa or Bruce House.