BRATTLEBORO — Nearly 100 participants at the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont's 28th annual Walk for Life downtown on Saturday raised $27,500 for area treatment and prevention efforts.
Shirley Squires, an 84-year-old Guilford great-great-grandmother walking in memory of her son, the late Democratic Rep. Ronald Squires, reaped 80 percent of the event's take by raising $22,500, a personal record.
Soliciting 800 family members, friends, and organizations statewide, Squires has gone from collecting $1,000 in her first walk in 1993 - just after her son became the first state public figure to lose his life to AIDS - to culling $12,000 on her 10th anniversary and $19,500 on her 20th.
Last year, Squires hit a collective total of $250,000.
This year's event at the River Garden on Main Street spotlighted community efforts to support local people living with HIV/AIDS and to reduce the risk of transmission to others. It specifically honored Brattleboro Memorial Hospital's Comprehensive Care Clinic, which for nearly two decades has treated southern Vermonters living with HIV/AIDS.
Proceeds from walkers will benefit the AIDS Project, a Brattleboro-based nonprofit established in 1988 to help people in Windham, Bennington, and southern Windsor counties.