Saturday December 1, 2007

The AIDS/HIV Services Group in Charlottesville has been in the headlines an awful lot recently; most notably after the murder last month of employee Jayne McGowan.

Saturday night, in addition to remembering Jayne, the group held a candlelight vigil for those who have fallen victim to the AIDS epidemic.

It was a chilly, blustery night as about 30 people, many of them students from UVa, came out to Barracks Road for a candlelight vigil.

"It's important for us to gather together as a community to really increase awareness," explains UVa third-year Hannah Green. "Just to cycle through the traffic lights we were able to remind several thousand people that it's World AIDS Day. We have over 30 million people in the world who are HIV-positive and even in our own community it's a serious problem."

Green devotes much of her time to ASAP, the school's AIDS Services Awareness Prevention club.

As the group's president, she says they hold weekly meetings to think about a topic that many only thought about on Saturday.

"It's not just a disease far away...it's a disease that's in our community, in our university...it's something that we're all affected by."

One event folks across Charlottesville were affected by, the murder last month of 26-year-old Jayne McGowan, was mourned Saturday night as well.

McGowan's parents drove down from New York Saturday to gather her personal belongings, and in speaking with her former boss, it's clear that time has not healed the McGowans' wounds.

"I don't think any parents wounds ever get healed from the loss of a child," said Kathy Baker with the AIDS/HIV Services Group. "[Especially] one where it was such an abrupt and vicious killing, where there's no chance to have closure, to say goodbye."

She adds a silver lining for the McGowan family is the impending birth of what will be the family's second grandchild. The baby, which would have been Jayne's niece or nephew, is due any day.

If you want more information on World AIDS Day or the AIDS/HIV Services Group, visit one of the following Web sites:

http://www.worldvision.org/get_involved.nsf/child/worldaidsday_2007_general?Open&campaign=105418140&cmp=KNC-105418140&source=goog&keyword=world%20aids%20day

http://aidsservices.org/