COLUMBUS, Ohio — AIDS Walk Ohio is one of the biggest events of the year for Equitas Health, and this year, the walk is expected to raise nearly a quarter of a million dollars to help fund AIDS prevention and treatment in central Ohio.
Started in the late 1980s, the walk not only brings in funding for Equitas Health, but it is an event to help educate the public and share crucial, lifesaving information.
"It was founded and started...as our friends and family members were dying in the middle of the pandemic and the crisis — it's hard to put into words," said Rob DuVall, director of events for Equitas Health. "So, as we look years later still fighting the fight, the reality is people are still contracting HIV, people are still dying of AIDS and we see that it's lack of education, lack of awareness, lack of knowledge about where the disease has progressed and evolved to. So, it's probably more important now than ever that we host an AIDS walk and we provide an opportunity for gathering information and knowledge as we continue to fight the fight."
Founded in 1984, Equitas Health is now one of the country's "largest LGBTQ+ and HIV/AIDS-serving organizations." With a presence in Ohio, Kentucky, West Virginia and Texas, Equitas Health offers primary and specialized care, pharmacy services, dentistry, mental health services, HIV and STI prevention and treatment to tens of thousands of patients.
"Early on, it was a death sentence if you were HIV positive and there wasn't a lot of funding and people were needing a myriad of things," explained Mitch Mathias, longtime volunteer with AIDS Walk Ohio. "From help to get to doctors' visits to housing, you need money to do everything and so it was important to raise money, but it was also important to show the public that it wasn't just a specific subgroup of individuals that were affected by HIV and that, not only were people infected with, but then the people around them that were affected by HIV."
Mathias pointed out that there have been great medical advancements made since the walk was started, but those lifesaving breakthroughs come at a significant cost for patients.
"It is a chronic and manageable condition today if you are adherent to your medications, you can live a long, productive life," Mathis said. "It's an expensive life because the medication, you know, is like $3,500 a month."
That's where Equitas Health comes in, providing funds and services to patients so they can access those lifesaving medications.
"Mitch is one of those dream volunteers," said DuVall of Mathias's years of support for the walk and the community. "He's one of the volunteers that has been on the front grounds for years and continues to lend his time and his energy and his passion to helping educate the Columbus and the Ohio community at large."
This year's AIDS Walk Ohio will honor Mathias with the Dr. Robert J. Fass Award for his dedication to the mission of AIDS Walk and Equitas Health.
Mathias was honored to be chosen for the recognition, but quickly turned the praise back on Dr. Fass, who was the director of Division of Infectious Diseases at The Ohio State University and for whom AIDS Walk Ohio memorializes, as well as all of the other infectious disease doctors over the years who have helped to get the medical research to where it is today.
Mathias said that, in addition to raising funds and awareness, his participation in AIDS Walk Ohio over the years has been in remembrance of friends that he has lost over the years.
"I'm one of the lucky ones," said Mathias. "I've been positive for 34 years now and it was affecting me significantly right as the Protease Inhibitors were coming out - the triple drug therapy - and I am one of the fortunate ones that, just as my T-cell count had dropped and my viral load had increased, the medication was there and I was able to access the medication to be here today. So, I do it in gratitude, also, that I'm here and that I can be a voice and a face."
The 2024 AIDS Walk Ohio will kick off at 10:30 a.m. April 20 at Genoa Park in downtown Columbus. For info on how you can support and/or participate, visit: https://www.classy.org/event/aids-walk-ohio-2024/e543651.