Pedaling for AIDS Awareness

	This year's FACE AIDS riders celebrate after reaching Echo Summit, CA.

It was a summer night in 2009 when, having just completed a 61-day bike ride across the country to raise awareness and funds for AIDS, Austin Keeley and Dave Evans decided they needed to do more.

Sitting in a Boston hotel room with 4,747 miles behind them and $20,000 raised, the Stanford University sophomores were dissatisfied with the impact of their cross-country ride for FACE AIDS, a student group dedicated to educating young people about issues surrounding HIV/AIDS.

“We both had this sense that we hadn’t accomplished anything,” said Evans, who with Keeley revived the ride after the inaugural journey by two of their classmates in 2007. “We decided this needed to be bigger than us – we wanted this to go on after we were done.”

Two years later their dream persists, and the fourth group of FACE AIDS cross-country riders hit the road June 14 to begin the long journey to Boston. The team of six will bike from state to state, talking to anyone who will listen about the role students can play in promoting social justice and healthcare in developing nations. 

Started in 2005 by students at Stanford University, FACE AIDS focuses its efforts on AIDS patients in Rwanda and has raised more than $2 million for Inshuti Mu Buzima, Partners in Health’s sister project in Rwanda. This years riders – Lili Ferguson, Michael Henry, Vadim Kogan, Katie Lund, Laura Lynch and Tim Spittle – will champion that mission during the three month journey.

Riding between 65 and 100 miles a day, riders will stop at churches, Rotary clubs, schools, FACE AIDS chapters, and other locations along the way to talk about the problems that HIV/AIDS present to the world. While fundraising is a major component of the journey (last year’s team raised $50,000), raising awareness about the need for universal access to health care is the crux of the ride, Keeley said.

Building a movement
Being able to talk to anyone and everyone about the issues that motivate the ride is crucial to spreading the message across the country – a lesson Keeley and Evans learned on their own ride in 2009. While they were occasionally disheartened by the lack of exposure to important issues surrounding AIDS, Keeley and Evans were more often encouraged by the willingness to listen among hosts, new friends and strangers along the way.

“What we did find was an immense sense of openness from people,” Keeley said. “There were people who said ‘you’re biking 100 miles a day in the heat, at the very least I can take the time to listen to you.’”

This year’s team, who hail from four states and four universities, will face the same challenge. Now making their way through Nevada, they have blogged about the progress of their ride and the goal of spreading awareness and have already raised $18,000 for Partners In Health.

They are not the only ones riding with Partners In Health as inspiration. Peter Hines took up the same mission – a cross-country ride to raise funds and awareness for PIH – earlier this year after leaving his Peace Corps post in Panama.

Hines, who embarked from Annapolis, Maryland and finished his ride this month in Arcata, California, still hopes to raise $2,124 for PIH – or 50 cents for each of the 4,248 miles he rode.

While Hines’ solo journey was markedly different from the established route and team effort of the FACE AIDS riders, both trips exemplify a determination to challenge oneself physically in order to shine a light on issues of global inequality.

The continuation of such projects, rather than one-time efforts of donating to a cause, have the capacity to create a movement that actually makes a difference in the world of health care equality, Keeley said. 

“Its easy to get complacent and think you’ve done enough,” Keeley said. “But for this to be a movement in the fight for social justice, there has to be a constant push, a constant fight.”