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COLUMBIA — For many adolescents, the number 21 is associated with wild “drinking age” birthdays that call for 21 shots. But for a group of Rock Bridge High School students, 21 has become a symbol of helping the less fortunate.
On Friday, which happened to be Dec. 21, 21 students walked 21 miles to earn pledges of $21 for the fight against AIDS. The walk started at 8 a.m. on the MKT Nature/Fitness Trail at Flat Branch Park and would conclude 9½ hours later after students walked back and forth on a section of the trail to log the miles.
- A group of 21 Rock Bridge High School students walked 21 miles on the MKT Trail on Friday, raising $5,700 for the Youth Aids organization.
- Students hoping to raise awareness about AIDS on Friday included, from left, Caelum Johnson, Jennifer Heman, Lauren Orschelm, Laura Oberbeck, Maggie Kauffman, Sainy Hussam and Daniel Burke-Agüero.
By early afternoon, the students neared the intersection of Stewart and Providence roads with weary legs, clutching water bottles and stripping off their winter coats. Their red faces were a clear indication of a solid workout. They finished the final stretch in darkness shortly after 5:30 p.m., exhausted but in high spirits, said Matt Cone, the Rock Bridge teacher who accompanied them.
With only a couple of weeks preparation and no assistance from advertising, the group raised $5,700.
Many of the students, including 17-year-old senior Sainy Hussam, said participation in Cone’s social studies class piqued their interest in the AIDS situation in the developing world, so he decided to get involved and support the program.
Both Cone and his students said they had watched documentaries about efforts to combat the disease in developing countries.
Cone said the fundraising campaign is on behalf of Youth AIDS, an organization “that does a lot of work throughout the developing world.”
“We know some of the people who work there,” Cone said, “and we are big fans of theirs, so we came up with this idea to raise a lot of money for them by virtue of a walk.”
Cone said the fundraising walk was also based loosely on a “kick-me” campaign developed by Population Services International, the parent group for Youth AIDS. That effort plays off the childhood prank of putting “kick me” signs on children’s backs without their knowledge. Cone said the idea is that people deserve a kick if they’re not doing enough about the AIDS epidemic.
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