LIFE

Rehoboth Beach World AIDS day marks loss, hope

Fay Jacobs
Special to the News Journal

On Thursday, Rehoboth Beach will renew its annual World AIDS Day candlelight walk for the 23rd time.

Students Evan Mallon, Lily Mallon, Allie Ibach and John Sophos all from Rehoboth with their candles.

The commemoration has been going on since 1994, and is a lovingly organized, well-attended vigil honoring friends and family members lost to AIDS. It’s also a show of solidarity and a vow to continue the fight against this global health crisis.

Every year, CAMP Rehoboth Inc., a non-profit LGBT service organization salutes World AIDS Day with a candlelight walk, a service and other activities.

Murray Archibald, the president of CAMP Rehoboth, has been organizing the event since its inception and marvels how the numbers of people participating have stayed strong – between 175 and 200 people every year, depending on the weather – for more than two decades.

AIDS was first identified in the early 1980s and more than 35 million people have died from it, making it one of the most destructive pandemics in history. Tremendous progress has been made in treating human immunodeficiency virus, the virus that causes acquired immunodeficiency syndrome, and medical treatments provide a way to manage HIV so it does not develop into the full-blown disease.

But in the late 1980s and early 1990s, AIDS struck hard in Rehoboth Beach and the surrounding areas, leaving lives cut tragically short and the community grieving.

The event will begin with a pre-walk gathering and candle lighting at 6:15 p.m. at the Rehoboth Beach bandstand on Rehoboth Avenue at the Boardwalk. The Candlelight Walk heads out at 6:30 p.m. and will proceed down Rehoboth Avenue, ending at All Saints’ Church, 18 Olive Avenue. The service will begin at 7 pm. A light supper will follow at the church at 7:45.

“It was such a life-changing event,” says Archibald, cutting down young people and touching many families.

Part of the service every year includes the reading of the names of those family members and friends who passed away from the disease. It’s always a stirring and moving experience.

“It's an honor for me to read some of the names. I always think of how many hearts were broken with each name read,” says Rehoboth resident Kathy Wiz. “I cry every year when I hear my brother Peter's name read ... even now, 31 years later.”

Several hundred gathered for World AIDS Day that was observed in Rehoboth Beach with a candle lighting and walk from the Bandstand to All Saints Church for a Service of Remembrance and Hope in an event sponsored by CAMP Rehoboth in 2014.

Along with the annual candlelight walk and service at a local church, the event includes a display of panels from the famed AIDS Quilt and other remembrances.

“One year we had gigantic red ribbons strung through the entire walk,” says Archibald. “They were big thick ribbons, and as we walked into the church you could hear the sound the ribbons made coming up the aisle. It made a huge impact,” he says.

One of the goals of World AIDS Day is to draw attention to the need for testing and early treatment for HIV. Many people still do not know the facts about how to protect themselves and others, as stigma and discrimination remain a reality for some people.

The 2016 Rehoboth Beach event’s theme will be “Looking Back, Facing Forward.” It is designed to stress the importance of remembering those whose lives have been lost while focusing on the progress to be made ahead.

“In our remembrance we celebrate those who passed away by recalling who they were as individuals,” says Glen Pruitt, event co-chair. “But remembering them also reminds us of how far we have come in dealing with HIV/AIDS. It challenges us to work even harder until we live in a world with no new HIV infections and a world with a cure for AIDS.”

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All activities are free and open to the public.

Sponsors include Epworth United Methodist Church, All Saints’ Episcopal Church, Delaware HIV Consortium, AIDS Delaware, the Cape Gazette, Christiana Care and Metropolitan Community Church Rehoboth.

To have the name of a family member or friend who has died from AIDS added to the list of names to be read at the service, call CAMP Rehoboth Executive Director Steve Elkins at (302) 227-5620.