2nd Annual Kansas City Latino Gay Pride/Orgullo Latino

Mario Canedo has planned the second annual Latino Gay Pride for September 11 from 2:00 – 8:00 pm. This year's event will be held at Washington Square Park and will feature music, dancing and live performances. This event has partnered with the National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) which is October 15. NLAAD takes place on the last day of the Hispanic Heritage month and was established in 2003. NLAAD hopes to unite and raise awareness in the Hispanic/Latino community. The 2010 theme is Save a Life, It May be your Own. Get Tested for HIV.

The Latino Gay Pride event allows an open and inviting venue for discussing HIV/AIDS and the need for safe sex within the Latino community in Kansas City. Here are some facts about Latinos and HIV/AIDS:

∙ Latinos account for 17% of all of new HIV infections and this is a 5% increase from 2005 – 2008.
∙ HIV infection among Latino men is double that of white men and four times that in Latina women than white women.
∙ Early detection can help prevent the spread of HIV; of those Latinos testing late, 41% develop AIDS within the first year.

We hope you will join us on September 11 as we raise awareness about HIV in the Latino community. Free and confidential testing will be available. For more information please call our Spanish hotline 816-778-0793 or visit http://www.nlaad.org/ for information about events in other cities.

Statics taken from http://www.nlaad.org/

AIDS Bicycle Challenge

The weather if finally starting to cool off and that means it is time once again for the AIDS Service Foundation of Kansas City's AIDS Bicycle Challenge. The bike challenge raises funds for local Kansas City HIV/AIDS organizations including Good Samaritan Project, Save Inc., KC Free Health Clinic and Hope Care Center.


This will be the event's sixth year and hopes to continue the growth from last year. In 2009 the event grew to over 300 riders up from just over 100 in 2008. To help encourage team participation this year they are offering a VIP tent for the team with the most participation and overall team fundraising. Of course I will be there with Team GSP, unfortunately I won't be riding but I will be hanging around our table at the event. I would love to see everyone come out and ride with us. Check out our team page on Firstgiving to ride with us or to help one our team members.

This year's event will be at Berkley Riverfront Park and will have four routes – 50, 35, 16 and 2 miles. Registration is $25 before the event and $30 the day of. Riders raising over $50 will be guaranteed a tech shirt or you can register for $50 to get the shirt.

For more information about the event and to see the routes check out the ABC website.
http://aidsbicyclechallenge.org/