Please help

Dear friends,

This June, I will be participating in the AIDS/LifeCycle, a 7-day, 585-mile bike ride from San Francisco to Los Angeles to raise money for the care and treatment of HIV and AIDS patients. As I write this letter, I don’t own a bicycle. I don’t even know how to ride a bicycle. I have never thought of myself as athletic and the challenges I have set myself have not been physical ones. My parents think I’m crazy. My friends think I’m crazy. Even I think I’m probably crazy. But the more I learned about this event, the more I knew I had to be part of it.

I first heard about the LifeCycle from one of my professors at Syracuse University. Last year, she organized a team of students from the SU Drama Department to do the event – they all trained together, raised funds together, and eventually did the ride together, winding up in my home city. I was there to meet them at the finish-line. Seeing them all after that incredible endeavor and watching the closing ceremonies was honestly one of the most beautiful and powerful things I have ever been part of, and I didn’t even do the ride myself. This year, when my professor said that she would again be leading a team of students in the LifeCycle, I knew I had to sign up.

In order to participate in the ride, each cyclist must raise at least $2,500. With almost 2,000 people doing the ride each year, the event has raised more than $17.5 million for the San Francisco AIDS Foundation and the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Centre since its inception. I have chosen SFAF as my beneficiary. SFAF runs a myriad of services to help people here in the US living with HIV and AIDS; four years ago, it also created the Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, which is working toward the development of vaccines and which provides treatment for infected people in Sub-Saharan Africa. For more information, please visit http://www.aidslifecycle.org/beneficiaries/sfaffact.html.

Because I will be studying abroad next semester, in London, I will be the only member of this year’s SU Drama LifeCycle team training on my own. Being in a different hemisphere from the rest of my team, it will be much harder for me to prepare for the event, both physically and in terms of fundraising. Anything at all that you can spare for me would be a great help and vastly appreciated. If everyone I know donates just $15, I will exceed my goal. (However, because not everyone I know will donate $15, please don’t let that stop you from contributing more!) To donate money you can go to http://aidslifecycle.org/1622 and click on “Make a Donation”. Your contribution is fully tax-deductible and will make a real difference in the lives of many people affected by HIV and AIDS.

A few months ago, I was sitting in services for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Holy Day of Atonement. During the reading of the Avinu Malchenu, the list of things that we beg from G-d, one line jumped out at me: “Our Father, Our King, withhold the Plague from Thy people.” The Rabbi (who is very keen on updating the liturgy) read it in a tone that said, sorry about this line, this service is old and everyone knows we don’t see much of the Black Death anymore. I prayed that line more sincerely than anything else in the whole service. In our world today, the Plague is AIDS, and despite all our efforts, it is spreading. I have thus far been blessed enough not to know anyone with HIV or AIDS, but as an actor, I am a member of a community on which the virus has historically taken a disproportionate toll; beyond that, as a citizen of the world, it terrifies me to watch this disease becoming pandemic in my own lifetime. None of my close friends or family have been hit personally, but this is still my fight – it is everyone’s fight. As some of you know, my mother was part of the team of epidemiologists researching this plague at its very beginning, before the problem was well-enough defined to even have a single name. I am not a doctor. I don’t have the skills to save lives and change the world with my research. When it comes to it, I don’t have the skills to cycle for 585 miles, either. But I will develop those skills, and I will do this ride, because I must. We must each do what we can to make a difference in our world. Please help me in my chosen endeavor.

Thank you very, very much for your support.

Sincerely,

Stephanie Mitchell

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A few months ago, I was sitting in services for Yom Kippur, the Jewish Holy Day of Atonement. During the reading of the Avinu Malchenu, the list of things that we beg from G-d, one line jumped out at me: “Our Father, Our King, withhold the Plague from Thy people.” The Rabbi (who is very keen on updating the liturgy) read it in a tone that said, sorry about this line, this service is old and everyone knows we don’t see much of the Black Death anymore. I prayed that line more sincerely than anything else in the whole service. In our world today, the Plague is AIDS, and despite all our efforts, it is spreading. I have thus far been blessed enough not to know anyone with HIV or AIDS, but as an actor, I am a member of a community on which the virus has historically taken a disproportionate toll; beyond that, as a citizen of the world, it terrifies me to watch this disease becoming pandemic in my own lifetime. None of my close friends or family have been hit personally, but this is still my fight – it is everyone’s fight. As some of you know, my mother was part of the team of epidemiologists researching this plague at its very beginning, before the problem was well-enough defined to even have a single name. I am not a doctor. I don’t have the skills to save lives and change the world with my research. When it comes to it, I don’t have the skills to cycle for 585 miles, either. But I will develop those skills, and I will do this ride, because I must. We must each do what we can to make a difference in our world. Please help me in my chosen endeavor.

Thank you very, very much for your support.

Sincerely,

Stephanie