The HACC students of Allies, the gay-straight alliance at the Lancaster Campus, is presenting the forum and arranged for 16 panels of the National AIDS Memorial Quilt to come to the campus for visitors to see. Also throughout the weekend the Harrisburg advocacy group, AIDS Community Alliance, will offer information and resources that help meet the needs of those affected by AIDS. The group assists AIDS and HIV patients in several counties, including Dauphin and Lancaster counties. A panel discussion will take place Sunday, Mar. 19 with representatives from advocacy and medical groups and a mother who lost her son to AIDS. The public is invited.
"Allies perceives the forum as an opportunity to bring the entire community together," said Jeff Roane, a HACC student studying sociology and president of Allies. "The quilt helps people deal with their loss, and having part of it here shows the community that the disease can affect us all."
The original AIDS Quilt, which was completely assembled in 1996 and displayed in Washington D.C., is a compilation of memorial quilts created by people who have lost loved ones to AIDS. The 16 panels of the quilt displayed at the Lancaster Campus is part of a larger quilt, which, in its entirety, stretches across the entire Mall area in downtown Washington D.C.
The Faces of AIDS in 2006 begins Friday, March 17, at 10 am with the presentation of the AIDS Quilt panels in community and dining rooms of the Main Building of HACC's Lancaster Campus located at 1641 Old Philadelphia Pike in Lancaster. The quilt will be on display from 10 am-4:00pm on Friday and Saturday Mar. 17 and 18 and from 1 pm to 4 pm on Sunday Mar. 19.
The presentation and panel discussion on Sunday begins at 4:30pm in the executive dining room in the Main building of the Lancaster Campus. The discussion will focus on the effects of AIDS in our community. Local speakers for the panel discussion include Dr. Jeffrey Kirchner, director of family and community medicine at Lancaster General Hospital, Ann Pryzbylkowski, HACC nursing instructor, Shane Thomas, AIDS Community Alliance representative, and Harriet Bowen a Lititz mother who lost her son to AIDS. Each will share how AIDS has affected their particular group.
At dusk Sunday participants will close the forum with a candlelight vigil outside in the courtyard of the Main building.
For more information, please contact the student activities office at the Lancaster Campus at 717-358-2850 or send an email to Jennifer St. Pierrer, the club's advisor, at the email address below.