$2,896.25

This August, I'm riding 600 kilometres from Toronto to Montreal in the Friends for Life Bike Rally. That's six days on a bike to raise money for the Toronto People With AIDS Foundation and three other AIDS service organizations.

HIV is the first thing I ever knew about queer people. Growing up in Alaska, the AIDS epidemic was one of the only lenses through which gay people existed in the world around me. It shaped, and distorted, what an entire generation understood about queer and trans life. I was just a baby when the epidemic was at its worst, but its shadow defined everything.

In high school, I was a member of an HIV peer education program run through the school district. We learned to talk to other teens about HIV. Like a lot of HIV prevention work aimed at teenagers in the late '90s, the approach had its blind spots. There was a fair amount of latent homophobia about who was "at risk" and why. But what it gave me was something I didn't fully understand at the time: a sense of being in community with, and in service of, my queer elders. That feeling continues.

There's a widespread sense that the AIDS epidemic is over. It isn't. Nearly five people are infected with HIV every day in Canada. Globally, 1.3 million people were newly infected in 2023, more than three times the target the world set for 2025. And the burden is not evenly distributed. HIV disproportionately impacts people who are already marginalized, by race, by poverty, by gender identity, and by the criminalization of their lives. The epidemic didn't end. It just stopped being visible to people it wasn't affecting.

PWA is the largest direct support provider for people living with HIV/AIDS in Canada. Right here in Toronto, they provide food, financial assistance, healthcare access, harm reduction supplies, and community to thousands of people every year. The need is real and it's growing.

This is my first rally. 600km is no joke. That's part of why I'm doing it. I want the effort to match what this cause has meant to me. Your donation goes directly to day-to-day programming that keeps people fed, housed, and connected to care.

My goal is $3,000. Any amount helps. Thank you.