AIDS Walk Kansas City Draws 3,500

More than 3,500 people turned out Saturday morning for the 14th annual AIDS Walk Kansas City. Organizers expected the event to raise more than $300,000 for local organizations working to support people with AIDS and their families. But perhaps as important as the dollars raised, many participants said, was the message the walk sent. It serves as a yearly reminder that AIDS continues to kill.

Veronica Carroll, who lost a cousin to AIDS and now has a brother with the disease, organized a family team for this year's walk. She saw it as a way to show support for her brother and help send a message that AIDS can happen to anyone.

That's the same message Don Carrel has been delivering for six years. Since he was diagnosed with AIDS in 1995, Carrel has worked to educate area teenagers about the realities of the disease. Carrel estimates he has talked to more than 75,000 students since 1996. They are listening, he said. "I was the first person who made them know what it would feel like to have AIDS."

Carrel's 1,000-person team was the largest organized group at the walk. The teens, wearing T-shirts carrying the slogan, "Don's Teens Trample AIDS," raised more than $30,000, walk organizers said. The AIDS Walk attracted individual walkers and more than 100 teams sponsored by large and small businesses, churches and other organizations. "I believe in a cure," said Michele Paynter, a social worker whose 42-year-old brother died from AIDS complications five years ago. "And I believe in the goodness of people coming together to find a cure."

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