During the 12th Annual AIDS Walk Washington Oct. 4, two GW AIDS Walk Team Committee members overheard the best compliment the GW team received that day. After a walker saw the spirit and heard the cheers of the GW team, she said to her friend, “That’s where I want my daughter to go to school.”

Few events bring together GW undergraduate and graduate students, faculty and staff members, alumni and even family members. The GW AIDS Walk Team Committee recently sought to do this for the second consecutive year. Our goal as a committee has been to unite all facets of the GW community while giving back to the D.C. community.

In years past, GW was represented at AIDS Walk Washington with 15 or so different teams. Some GW students and faculty members were participating in the walk, but they were not doing it as one united team. The committee felt that not only would a large, combined team encourage a stronger bond between everyone in the GW community, but it also would bring more people to the event. This would guarantee that a large sum of money would be raised for the Whitman-Walker Clinic. And sure enough, for the second consecutive year, our objectives came to pass.

As a member of the committee, I am proud of what the GW team accomplished. The 1998 GW AIDS Walk Team Committee started working even before this semester began to create the GW team. Our goal was at least 800 participants. Recently we were informed that not only did we reach this goal, but we also were the largest team at the AIDS Walk.

The GW Team raised $14,454, with more still coming in. (If you haven’t sent your pledges in, it’s not too late). We were the seventh highest fund-raiser and the only university team to be in the top 20. Had there been several different GW teams, surely less money would have been raised, as we saw in past AIDS Walks.

On behalf of the 1998 GW AIDS Walk Team Committee, I would like to thank all those students, employees, alumni and family members that joined the GW team, as well as the student and faculty organizations that helped the committee publicize and recruit participants. Without your help, GW would not have had as many participants, raised as much money or been able to promote school unity. Your help proved what we can accomplish by working together. The team’s accomplishments are not the committee’s, but the University’s.

The GW AIDS Walk Team Committee already has started planning for next year’s team, which is sure to be even larger and raise even more money. We hope that everyone who walked will come out and walk again, and those who didn’t will join us next year. This is a great once-a-year event that benefits our GW and D.C. community. And who knows? Perhaps that walker’s daughter will join us next year.

-The writer was a 1998 GW AIDS Walk Team Committee member.