Moving Ceremony Remembers Those Lost to AIDS

Family members and friends lost to AIDS were remembered Sunday morning at the Royal Oak Farmers Market in a moving ceremony that kicked off AIDS Walk Detroit 2013.

Before walkers hit the pavement for a 5K fundraising walkathon in downtown Royal Oak, silence was observed during the opening of twenty panels of the Names Project AIDS Memorial Quilt.


The AIDS Memorial Quilt is "a powerful visual reminder of the AIDS pandemic. More than 48,000 individual 3-by-6-foot memorial panels — most commemorating the life of someone who has died of AIDS — have been sewn together by friends, lovers and family members," according to www.aidsquilt.org.

Since 1991, more than $3.5 million has been raised to benefit HIV/AIDS services here in Michigan, according to www.aidswalkdetroit.org.