It finally feels like summer in NYC again. For me, a June heatwave means it’s long past time that I jumpstart my training and my fundraising for BRAKING AIDS® Ride.

Over the past decade, past donations from hundreds of generous souls have been essential in helping me raise over $90,000 and counting to support Housing Works’ many life-saving services for those living with HIV as well as its efforts toward ending the AIDS epidemic once and for all. 

I’m counting on that support again this year to raise at least $15,000 to end AIDS as an epidemic in New York by 2020.

WHY I KEEP RETURNING TO BRAKING AIDS® RIDE

Me, with some of my amazing Housing Works Advocacy colleagues and friends, who inspire me every day (L to R): Valerie Reyes-Jimenez, Legacee Medina, me, Felicia Carroll. 

For the first time since the AIDS crisis began, we have the tools to end the epidemic. More than six years ago, when the audacious goal of ending AIDS as an epidemic in New York, even without a cure or vaccine, was first proposed by Housing Works, Treatment Action Group, and other allies, many people thought it was impossible, and the Governor’s Office and the State Department of Health were not yet sold on the idea. Since then, Housing Works has provided unparalleled leadership to get New York to adopt a plan that makes full use of the tools we have to end AIDS as an epidemic statewide by 2020. At the time of the state plan’s launch in 2014, in the course of educating people about the plan and its feasibility, we said, “an AIDS-FREE New York is closer than you think…” We weren’t kidding. This past December we marked major milestones in the state plan to end AIDS: unprecedented city and state decreases in HIV diagnoses. In 2016, NYC achieved a record 11% decrease, and NYS achieved a corresponding 8.7% decrease. The legislation and policy changes we’ve been fighting for to end the epidemic are working, and we are on track to do it by 2020! And it’s not just New York: Since 2014, more than a dozen additional U.S. jurisdictions have committed to end-AIDS plans, and the U.N. has established 2030 as its target date to bring global infection rates below epidemic levels.

This will also be my 10th year participating as a rider in this annual 3-day, 300-mile journey by bicycle. People sometimes ask me how and why I keep coming back. As someone who has now worked in Housing Works Advocacy for going on five years, I truly believe in the Housing Works lifesaving services this ride supports—because I see those programs and services in action and how much they’re needed and the difference they make firsthand every day. But the truth is, as much as I truly believe in those programs and the organization’s mission, many of my reasons to keep showing up to ride are self-serving.

BRAKING AIDS® is unique because it isn’t only a ride, it’s also a family. The experience of being part of that family and this shared experience for over a decade has challenged me to be my best self, which is to say that it challenges me to be not necessarily my strongest or surest but to be willing to show up even as and at my most vulnerable and uncertain. To show up as myself even when I’m tired, depleted, demoralized, struggling, plagued by self-doubt. It’s taught me to show up and try even when I’m stretched thin and fairly certain I haven’t got it in me. It’s shown me it’s not only okay but healthy and necessary to ask for help at times, a tough, recurring lesson for me because I’m private, and I’m stubborn and fierce about my sense of self-reliance and independence (and even with years of practice, I will be the first to admit I’m still *terrible* at asking for help!).

Me, with my friend and fellow rider Jamil Wilkins, during BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2016, getting a hug after the first 60 miles of riding. 

BRAKING AIDS® is also unique because like Housing Works and the work it does, it’s a movement. Both these communities and movements understand we cannot end AIDS as an epidemic in our state, nation, or around the world unless we collectively address the social and economic drivers of HIV—homelessness, unemployment, racism, homophobia, transphobia, misogyny and sexism, addiction, and mental illness. In the dark and divisive times in which we are living today, we are faced daily with acts of hate in every manifestation, and much of what we see, hear, and read reflects a diminishment of empathy in the public sphere. That makes it more important than ever that Housing Works and BRAKING AIDS® have both always stood for what we at Housing Works call “Radical Inclusion”: for accepting people as they are. We stand for love that heals and for acts of kindness, especially those directed to strangers.

Movements don’t and can’t sustain their work based on the efforts of any individual. As poet Mayda Del Valle wrote, “a movement is not a flash of light— it is a flame, a torch passed from one…to the next.” For that reason and in that spirit, I am asking for your help again to support my efforts. Together, we can end AIDS.

How You Can Help

Please consider DONATING TODAY! Here’s what your gift can help support:

$1,000 sustains one month of supportive housing

$500 provides 100 hygiene kits for homeless youth

$250 supports 30 days of mental health and substance use counseling

$150 covers a one-night stay at a Single-Room Occupancy for 2 homeless youth in need of emergency housing

$100 feeds 25 homeless youth during evening drop in hours at Housing Works’ East New York health center

DONATE VIA MY FUNDRAISING PAGE: 

https://fundraising.housingworks.org/participant/mika2018

Ways to make giving easier, to make your donation go further & to help me reach my $15K goal sooner: 

• PLEASE CHECK WITH YOUR HR DEPT. & SEE IF YOUR COMPANY WILL MATCH YOUR DONATION! If so, then check the “YES” bullet in the Company Matching section of the online donation form, and fill out the related information. You may be able to double or even triple your contribution! In 2016, over $3K of the $23K I raised came from company matches, so I cannot underscore enough how much this helps. 

• Recurring Monthly Gift: On the donation page, once you select a gift amount, click on the “Monthly” option to set up a recurring donation of any amount over your desired period of time. I prefer to donate this way because I can give more with only a small hit coming from my wallet each month.

• Cover Processing Costs:  Each donation incurs a processing fee that’s 7% of your gift. When the overall fundraising goal is $15K, 7% adds up: If everyone who gives covers the processing fee, that’s more than an additional $1,000 that goes straight to work at Housing Works. 

• Please forward this information to EVERYONE. Spread the word to your friends & colleagues! Forward the link to this blog post or share my donation link with your own networks on Facebook, Twitter, Instagram & other social media.

Thank you in advance for your generosity, friendship, kindness, encouragement, and support! I couldn’t do this without you.

Please join me & Housing Works in the fight to end AIDS by donating to Braking AIDS Ride 2018 (Cooperstown, NY, to Manhattan, Sept. 14-16)—Mika De Roo, Rider # 32. Donation site: https://fundraising.housingworks.org/participant/mika2018