Please donate to LLAA AIDS walk
http://www.lifelongevents.org/goto/AJM
This year I am walking in the AIDS walk and would appreciate any money that any of my friends can contribute to this worthy cause. I am walking in memory of three very influential people in my life.
My homeroom teacher from 7th Grade, Dave Gentry, who was the first person I saw go through AIDS. The school called it cancer and still sticks to that to this very day but he was an active member of the LGBT Community in Seattle and is remembered on the AIDS rememberance wall at The Cuff.
My uncle Charles "Upchuck" Garrish, one of the original punks of Seattle as well as one of Seattle's early Goth's from when they were still called "Bat-Cavers". Through conversations with him I started to learn to accept myself. I lost him in 1990 after a very heroic fight that had almost everyone convinced he might actually survive long enough for there to be a cure.
My other uncle Travis "Mona Lott" McCartney is the third person I walk in memory off. He died in 1993 but picked up where my uncle Upchuck left off. He talked to me and helped me to accept that being gay was okay. His support after Upchuck died helped me abandon my self hate and learn that I wasn't as alone as I felt.
Many of the services Life Long offers today weren't available when they were engaged in their battles. Please donate so that we never have to see what life is like for people with HIV and AIDS without the support of the community ever again.
Thank you,
Aaron McCartney
This year I am walking in the AIDS walk and would appreciate any money that any of my friends can contribute to this worthy cause. I am walking in memory of three very influential people in my life.
My homeroom teacher from 7th Grade, Dave Gentry, who was the first person I saw go through AIDS. The school called it cancer and still sticks to that to this very day but he was an active member of the LGBT Community in Seattle and is remembered on the AIDS rememberance wall at The Cuff.
My uncle Charles "Upchuck" Garrish, one of the original punks of Seattle as well as one of Seattle's early Goth's from when they were still called "Bat-Cavers". Through conversations with him I started to learn to accept myself. I lost him in 1990 after a very heroic fight that had almost everyone convinced he might actually survive long enough for there to be a cure.
My other uncle Travis "Mona Lott" McCartney is the third person I walk in memory off. He died in 1993 but picked up where my uncle Upchuck left off. He talked to me and helped me to accept that being gay was okay. His support after Upchuck died helped me abandon my self hate and learn that I wasn't as alone as I felt.
Many of the services Life Long offers today weren't available when they were engaged in their battles. Please donate so that we never have to see what life is like for people with HIV and AIDS without the support of the community ever again.
Thank you,
Aaron McCartney