PSU observes World AIDS Day

Gorillas in Your Midst, a peer health education group at Pittsburg State University, the PSU Women’s Studies Club and the AIDS Resource Network of Southeast Kansas (ARNOSK) will observe World AIDS Day with a variety of activities.

The campus observance begins on Nov. 28 with a display in the Overman Student Center of panels from the AIDS quilt, on loan from the Tulsa Area Names Project. The quilt has memorial panels dedicated to the memory of lost loved ones. Panels will also be on display at the Meadowbrook Mall Nov. 25-27.

At 7 p.m. on Nov. 30, the PSU Women’s Studies Club will sponsor a showing in 109 Grubbs Hall of the film “A Closer Walk.” This film, directed by Academy Award nominee Robert Bilheimer, depicts humankind’s confrontation with the global AIDS epidemic. A panel discussion will follow the film.

A Memorial Service will take place at 7 p.m. on Dec. 1, which is World AIDS Day, at Timmons Chapel on the PSU campus. The service will feature an informational speech on HIV-AIDS in Southeast Kansas by Vicki Bunskill-Stus, Ryan White II HIV-AIDS Case Manager from the Crawford County Health Department; a dramatic presentation by Gorillas In Your Midst; songs by Joy Leeper; and a candlelight remembrance of all who have died and continue to live with HIV-AIDS.

At each of the events, monetary donations for the AIDS Resource Network of Southeast Kansas will be accepted. Ten percent of all monies collected will be forwarded to Doctors Without Borders, the Nobel Prize-winning medical relief organization, with the stipulation that the money be used for AIDS relief in developing countries.

Also, at all of the events, food boxes will be set up to collect canned and boxed food and toiletries. Donations of canned meat, soups, stews, macaroni or shells and cheese dinners, hamburger or tuna helper, toothpaste, shampoo, soap or other non-perishable food or toiletry items are welcomed

For more information, please contact J.T. Knoll, prevention and wellness educator, at 620-235-4062.

---Pitt State---