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From the Colorado AIDS Project

From the Colorado AIDS Project

Dear readers:

I am so excited about this year’s 25th annual AIDS Walk Colorado, and am thrilled to be offered the opportunity to appear on the cover of the 25th Anniversary AIDS Walk Colorado issue. I feel very honored to be able to represent Colorado AIDS Project and our community in this capacity.

Growing up in Pueblo, I was lucky – and maybe a bit sheltered – to not know anyone who was affected by the disease.

As an adult, AIDS hadn’t really touched my life. In my mind, like in the minds of many other people, AIDS was something that happened somewhere else. But when I was 31, after living in Denver for many years, AIDS finally hit close to home: In 2006 a very good friend of mine took me to lunch to tell me that he had been diagnosed as HIV-positive. AIDS finally had a face in my life.

I have to admit that I didn’t know a lot about AIDS at that time, and although I knew of Colorado AIDS Project I didn’t know the full scope of what the organization did. I started to research the disease and ways that I could support my friend, learning that CAP provided housing, counseling, food, transportation and insurance assistance to people living with HIV.

In 2008 when I came upon the job posting for my current position, I was ecstatic to be given even a glimmer of hope that I might be able to do something in the community that would benefit so many people.

Here I am, much more knowledgeable and producing my fifth AIDS Walk Colorado. I feel extremely humbled each year when I see thousands descend upon Cheesman Park to take part in what I’ve spent a year putting together. Organizations like Colorado AIDS Project exist to support and care for those in our community affected by HIV and AIDS, but it’s because of the help and generosity of the community that CAP can do this. To be able to organize fundraising events like AIDS Walk Colorado, Red Ball, Smack Down AIDS, Bar Wars and more makes me truly proud of the contribution I’m able to make in our community and in the fight against AIDS.

I’m also truly proud to have relationships with so many individuals at Out Front Colorado. I’ve had so many meetings and exchanged e-mails and phone calls with Jerry Cunningham, Nic Garcia, Holly Hatch, Sara Decker and Ryan Cross – especially Ryan – that I sometimes feel like an extended member of the Out Front Colorado family.

This publication has been such a valued partner in promoting and covering CAP’s events and happenings, and the relationship between our organizations for nearly three decades is important to CAP and to me.

All of the recent talk around possible preventative drugs for HIV is truly exciting, and I’m glad that something like this is happening in my lifetime when I’m working for the largest AIDS Service Organization in the state. A pill to help in the prevention of the disease provides so much hope that there is progress, and maybe there will soon be a cure. But I also know that there’s so much further to go.

In the meantime there are thousands of Coloradans living with the disease who need the support of the community and agencies such as CAP. That’s why I’m so humbled to see the crowds at Cheesman Park, and that’s why it’s so important for our community members to come out to AIDS Walk Colorado, show their support, raise funds and do what they can to make it possible for CAP and other AIDS Service Organizations to continue supporting those affected by HIV in Colorado. That’s why I’m so grateful that I get to do what I do.

Thank you so much for this opportunity and for your continued support of CAP. 

Kindest regards,

Jeff Trujillo

Colorado AIDS Project Development Officer

– Special Events

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