Pittsburgh AIDS Walk To End After This Year; Organizers Cite Missed Fundraising Goals, Declining Participation
The Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force has announced that the Pittsburgh AIDS Walk scheduled for June 6 will be the city's last because of recent declines in participation and a failure to meet fundraising goals, the AP/Centre Daily Times reports. Although the walk at its height in 1999 raised $250,000 and drew several hundred thousand participants, last year's event drew only 800 participants and raised only about $56,000. "When you think about all the time and resources that we spend on this, and you only come up with around $56,000, it just doesn't make (financial) sense," Task Force spokesperson Gina Focareta said. The Task Force said that competition from other charity walks, the waivering economy and a declining interest in AIDS has led to decreased interest in the walk. Organizers in other cities have cited similar problems (Nephin, AP/Centre Daily Times, 5/25). "AIDS walks simply are not garnering the kinds of public support they did 10 or 20 years ago," AIDS Foundation of Miami Valley Executive Director William Hardy said (Associated Press, 5/24). However, AIDS walks in some other cities are "still going strong," such as AIDS Walk New York, which on May 16 raised a record $5.4 million, according to the AP/Daily Times (AP/Centre Daily Times, 5/25).
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