Get a Red Ribbon License Plate

Our recent update on the Red Ribbon license plates -- to help increase AIDS awareness -- made me realize that I need to order one. (Basically, there need to be 300 ordered before the DMV will produce them, and the AIDS Alliance currently only has 100 orders.) You should consider it, too.

In general, I don't think of my life as being directly affected by HIV/AIDS, but with just a little thought, I realize that it totally is.

I was adopted as a kid by my Aunt Evelyn. Her best friend was a young man named Donnie, and he was the hero of my young years. He was friendly and energetic, and he always, always took time to play with me and teach me games. He died when I was nine-years-old, and it wasn't until years later, when I was a teenager, that I found out his death was from complications related to AIDS.

I also used to work for a hospice organization. While HIV/AIDS isn't the top cause of death in hospices/of patients under hospital care, hospices were a leader in providing palliative (i.e., pain-relieving as opposed to curative) care for people with HIV/AIDS.

Here at Equality NC, I've interacted with many people who are HIV+ or who have AIDS. We've partnered with the Alliance of AIDS Services - Carolinas on many projects. (Also, I love AASC's Drag Bingo -- that is always extremely fun and entertaining, and it's always attended by a diversity of people, young and old, families with kids, college students.)

Last year, one of the guys on my rugby team was hospitalized for a life-threatening infection and ended up discovering he was HIV+.

HIV/AIDS is everywhere, and anything we do will make a difference.Certainly the least I can do is pay a token fee for a license plate. I hope you'll consider that, too -- click here to download the application.

-Ian Palmquist