California: Sacramento Valley River of Rejuvenation

Healing Waters is a San Francisco-based organization that coordinates rafting trips down the American River for people living with HIV/AIDS.

Cale Siler founded the group 15 years ago when he was a student at University of California-Berkeley, using his sea kayaking skills to lead a group of HIV-positive men down the river's South Fork, while his mom cooked their campsite meals. Healing Waters is now run by two staff and some 140 volunteers who conduct about 15 rafting trips per year.

Being out in nature and navigating rapids can help renew peoples' sense of strength and control over their lives, said Siler, now a psychiatry resident at UC-Davis. A 2005 University of Rochester study examining the health value of Healing Waters' trips found more than one-half of participants reported a decrease in depression, and one-quarter reported more vitality and improved mental health.

On Aug. 20, 25 clients of Shanti, a local HIV/AIDS organization, went rafting. Outdoor adventures enhance health by breaking a cycle of anxiety, said John Oleson, a Shanti clinical supervisor who was on the trip. "When the sustained stress of living in a hectic city and facing a disease head-on is lifted, the immune system can do its job much better," Oleson said.

Travis Abernathy was among those in the Shanti group. HIV-positive for 30 years and coping with a more recent diagnosis of multiple sclerosis, Abernathy said the embarrassment of using a wheelchair kept him in his apartment for four years. But he is walking again, and the thrill of the river ride, including getting tossed overboard once, has renewed his confidence.

"It really put it back into my body that I'm still very much alive and able to do whatever I want to do if I put my mind to it," said Abernathy.

For more information, visit www.hwaters.org.

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