FACE AIDS is a new organization that has just been brought to UD by fifth year senior Charlie Opperman.

The organization was originally started in the summer of 2005 by three university students who volunteered at a Zambian refugee camp. Upon seeing how prevalent AIDS was, they felt compelled to do something. The initial thought for FACE AIDS came during this trip when, according to faceaids.org, 'they decided to expand the income-generating project to two other refugee camps and the surrounding communities to produce and sell a target of 50,000 beaded AIDS awareness pins at universities across the U.S.' Since 2005, FACE AIDS awareness has spread to universities around the country, including our very own UD.

Upon its arrival at UD, FACE AIDS has already had several events to raise AIDS awareness and has many more to come this year. An event that just occurred last Thursday night was a concert by the band, 'Delimit' on Art Street. The concert was free and hot dogs and AIDS pins were sold for $5 with all the proceeds going to FACE AIDS.

As a member of the FACE AIDS public relations committee, I would just like to encourage everyone to help support this great organization. If we can all make a contribution of time or money, no matter how big or small, we can do our part to help get awareness out there about the widespread problem of AIDS. It might not directly affect us here at UD but why not help those less fortunate than us?

Even a contribution of a few dollars can change one person's life. One important thing to keep in mind is that it takes just $4 for an infant to receive preventative measures, a shot that stops the disease from passing from mother to child. $4 hardly seems like much in our society, but to an infant in Africa, it can be the difference between an extremely difficult life and a much easier one.

You can improve someone's life. Sure, you can go use your money to buy that new DVD that just came out, but why not save that money to go to a more worthwhile cause, like FACE AIDS? If you think of it this way, those people in Africa infected with AIDS certainly don't have the option of such a luxury. Let's face it, you don't really need that DVD, but these people in Africa could certainly use that money to go towards a more worthwhile cause.

Katherine Hanke
Sophomore
Journalism