On World AIDS Day, Murrow High Displays Memorial Quilt In Honor Of Lives Lost To The Disease

Edward R. Murrow High School recognized World AIDS Day Tuesday by holding the first of a series of presentations to raise HIV/AIDS awareness and teach students how to avoid contracting the disease.

The workshops are held hourly throughout the week. The first group of students gathered at 9am in the gymnasium where members of the school’s H.E.A.R.T. Club hung panels from the AIDS Memorial Quilt around the room. Some of the panels honored AIDS victims with close connections to Murrow High School, including one that carried the names of a former student and two teachers who passed away due to complications from the virus.

“Look around you. Each quilt, the size of a grave, is a labor of love,” H.E.A.R.T. Club member Iqra Ilahi told the students. “It memorializes and celebrates each of the lives lost due to complications from AIDS to show you the personal side of the AIDS epidemic and that HIV/AIDS can happen to anyone, anywhere, at any age.”

Murrow has been displaying the AIDS Quilt at the school for 22 years. The entire quilt, first displayed in Washington, D.C., in 1987 during the height of the AIDS epidemic, has become the largest community art project in the world. The last time it was shown in its entirety, in 1996, the quilt occupied a space equal to 24 football fields.

Murrow rents the quilt panels from The NAMES Project Foundation, the non-profit custodian of the AIDS Memorial Quilt. Other names showcased on the panels include Iris De La Cruz, the HIV/AIDS activist who succumbed to the disease in the early 90s. Iris’ mother, Beverly, used to speak at Murrow every year on World AIDS Day before she passed away earlier this year.

Murrow teacher and H.E.A.R.T. Club advisor Lisa Willner has a family member featured in the AIDS Quilt. Her uncle Joseph Willner passed away in 2001 after a long battle with HIV/AIDS. He used to come to Murrow when Lisa was a student at the school to educate students about the disease.

“What we have here helps me understand what happened to him,” Willner said. “And it helped him as well. He found a purpose. He became an educator. He came here to educate people [about HIV/AIDS]. And I said when he couldn’t, I would make sure to keep doing it.”

Students also received information from the DOE’s Office of School Wellness about sexual health when a representative from the school’s Condom Availability Program (CAP) hosted a jeopardy game that quizzed students on their knowledge about the HIV/AIDS.

H.E.A.R.T Club member Alyssa Belle said her mother’s best friend passed away AIDS complications. She joined the club to to educate her fellow students about prevention measures.

“HIV/AIDS doesn’t pick and choose who it connects to. Anybody can be affected,” she said. “I wanted to make sure that my fellow students were protected and could take the right precautions.”