By Jen Lebron and Christa Gardner
December 3, 2007

PLNU students saw orange during AIDS Awareness Week, beginning last Monday.

Hundreds of students, faculty and staff members wore orange T-shirts with the word “orphan” on them to represent children in Africa who are orphaned by AIDS.

Ten percent of the school’s population was supposed to wear an orange shirt on Friday to represent how many children in Africa will lose their parents by the year 2025 if nothing is done to stop the epidemic, according to sophomore Kelcey Price, who helped organize the event.

“It’s a very vivid visual representation of how many people it affects,” said Price.

The shirts were given to PLNU by World Vision, a non-governmental organization that has begun a campaign to help children affected by AIDS. PLNU sold them  for $2, with all proceeds going to help orphans in Africa.

This is the second year that PLNU has hosted AIDS Awareness Week. It was spearheaded by Price and senior Katie Schostag, co-leaders of student ministry Global Issues.

Aside from spreading awareness using the orange campaign, the committee behind AIDS Awareness Week, which included members of Student Ministries and other on-campus groups, held a series of events that included making care kits for infected individuals in Africa and a Brewed Awakening forum featuring a representative from Gogo Grandmothers.

The nonprofit charters local groups for prayer and support and provides African grandparents with both physical and spiritual resources.

Nearly 100 students attended the Brewed Awakening on Monday in Cunningham Dining Room. Mary Phiri, a member of Gogo Grandmothers, shared the plight of thousands of children in Sub-Saharan Africa who are orphaned due to AIDS.

“Africa is such a mystery; the culture is so different,” said senior Danielle Fankhauser, who attended the forum and recently traveled with a LoveWorks team to Liberia. “You hear about American and European history but nothing about Africa’s. I’m inspired to do something to help.”

Sociology professor Jamie Gates, who is the director of the Center for Justice and Reconciliation and on the committee for AIDS Awareness Week, said that the point of the week is to encourage students to not only recognize how widespread the epidemic is, but how to get involved.

The week is planned around AIDS Awareness Day on Dec. 1. Although the week was successful, according to Price, Friday’s rain displaced the week’s concluding informational booth fair from Caf Lane to the piano lounge. Price said the event went well despite the venue change and that the complication was a small matter in the grand scheme of things.

“I think that by showing the huge impact of this disease ... [AIDS Awareness Week]  has really shown that God cares for these people, even when we know they are going to die, that God still values them and still loves them.”

Price said that there are various ways for students to stay involved with AIDS awareness year-round, including donating time and money to groups like World Vision and writing letters to Congress.

However, “the most effective way is to continue to pray,” said Price. “It doesn’t seem like much and it may seem repetitive or that it’s not really doing any good, but I firmly believe that God hears our prayers and answers them.”