Author Archives: Mikola De Roo

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About Mikola De Roo

writer • strategy, marketing, and communications maven • former cheese monger

Braking AIDS® Ride 2026 Recap (video)

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Me and The Blue Streak, my bicycle, on the road this past Saturday with my friend Sydney Shapiro

I had such a beautiful weekend with my BRAKING AIDS® Ride family! I am also filled with so much love and gratitude for all the friends and family who support the ride, help us honor the loved ones we have lost and empower those living with HIV, and enable our community to continue the fight to end AIDS. Together, we raised $420,000 and counting to support Housing Works lifesaving services and advocacy.

As of this writing, I have raised more than $23,000 from over 145 generous donors. AND YES, YOU CAN STILL DONATE OVER THE NEXT FEW WEEKS:

DONATE NOW TO BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026!

Below is a BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026 video recap, from my time helping with event prep in the days leading up to the ride to the protest we participated in at Philadelphia City Hall on Friday along with Housing Works and other community-based AIDS organizations to my two incredible days on the road.

Because of the generous gifts from over 145 of you and counting, Housing Works can continue to provide comprehensive life-saving services while also fighting for policies promoting social justice and saving crucial funding for HIV programs locally, regionally, nationally, and globally. Just last year alone, Housing Works accomplished the following:

  • served 15,000+ clients, who were able to receive health care, housing, and other crucial services
  • provided 80,000+ health care visits to clients
  • operated 815 supportive and transitional housing units for those in greatest need
  • restored $5.3 million in funding to crucial NYC HIV programs
  • organized 50+ advocacy mobilizations across NYC, DC, and Albany

Because BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026 is unrestricted funding, those dollars pay for much of that essential, ongoing advocacy work.

Thank you to everyone for your support and encouragement, which kept me going every mile. I couldn’t do any of this without all of you.

DONATE NOW TO BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026!

BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026 Donors, as of October 5, 2026

Kory Floyd & Brian Seastone • Josie Raney • Judy Albert • Sander Glick • Michael Gillespie • Sherry Wolfe • Spencer Kubo & Adele Della Torre • Alan Miles • Brent & Jessica Griffith • Elizabeth King • Marsha Johnson • Clay Williams & David Groff • Bil Thibodeau • Alison  Kliegman • Christopher Anderson & Mel Stupka • Jane Beverley • Kenneth Allendoerfer • Gregg Passin • Brian Carroll • David Murphy • Michele Bronson • Suzanna De Baca • Ann Lefert • Kimberleigh Smith • Nancy Perry • Barbara Ortiz Howard & Shelley Karliner • Cheryl Stephens • Yu Wong • Becky Lien • Carolyn Lengel • Jodi & Ken Duffield • Terri Schiesl • India Amos • Mark Biblow • Cassidy Edstrom • Francine & Lenny Goldstein • Ellen Macelree • James Anderson & Suzy Turner • Eva & Tom Okada • Michael Kharfen • Anne Paterson • Rhona Robbin • Mike Joy • Jennifer Bailey • Lisa Pinto • Nancy Crochiere • Holly Harrison • Tom Cardamone • Denise Wydra • Lisa Dunmeyer • Terence Fitzgerald • Rhonda Harris • Jess Carroll & Sharon Glick • Renee Anderson • Mark Brady • Danielle Stein • Matina Madrick • Erik Skarstad • Tad Kulkowski • Jenny HIraga • Mariamne Eliopoulos • Jon Bierman • Christopher Bram • Ginny Shubert • Jennifer Tourje Hairston • Betty Chen • Stephen Okada • Kristin Mellstrom • Daphne Huang • Jon & Rachel Lowy • Jennifer & Matt Glass • David Wilk • Joanna Imm • Robbie Brooks & Matt Lesieur • Karen Henry • Jody Kuh • David Anthony • Christina Morris & Alyssa Walsh at Element Natural Healing Arts • Tom Hyry • Janice Hillman • Vimukti & Elazar Aslan • Peter Staley • Mark Harrington • Allison Dalton • Beth Castrodale • Sigrid Schmalzer • David Meier • Jess Harris & Xavier Francis • Carla Samodulski • Cheryl Grimm • Martha Chodat • Todd Drezner • Deirdre Birmingham • Jessica Abel • Laura & Will McGrath • Erica Appel • Judith Kromm • Blue Chevigny • Evan Spingarn • Susan Conceicao • Nancy Boudreau • David Logan • Carylanna Taylor • Marissa Walsh • Steve Bratton • Alicia Scotti • Julia Daly • Zoe DeRoo • Adam Singer • Lisa & Kevin Freeman-Cook • Jenna Barry • Anna Gedrich • Talvi Laev • Eileen Pollack • Janet Byrne Smith • Ted Caine • Sally Ellwein • Jennie Katsaros • Amanda Guinzburg • Krishna Stone • Amy Danziger Tenenbaum • Leah Bassoff • Nat Beagley • Rebecca Gilpin • Barbara Clapp • Michele Richman • Heather Morrison • Janis Auster • Cami Johnson • Heather Beal

DONATE NOW TO BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026!

Doing More/ BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026

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Pickle juice, the replenishing choice of champions. Don’t knock it until you try it.

During the first weekend in October, I’ll be riding my bicycle, The Blue Streak, from Philadelphia to NYC again for BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2026 in support of Housing Works.

I will ride this year, as always, in memory of family friends Dennis and Curtis, who both died of AIDS in 1987 and 2003, respectively, and also in honor of my many loved ones who live with HIV and the countless HIV/AIDS activists who continue to make the world a better place. For a snapshot of why I have been doing this ride for nearly 20 years, check out this short video from a few years ago.

What’s different this year? I’m committed to raising more money—because Housing Works has been doing more. And Housing Works continues to step up and do more because it’s necessary.

Last year, thanks to over 180 steadfast, kind souls, I raised nearly $29,000—and as a bonus, I can say that I’ve raised $310,000+ since my first AIDS ride. This year, I’m committed to increasing my fundraising goal to $32,000. 

Donations of all sizes are welcome, but a gift of $200 or more will go a long way toward reaching my $32K goal and enabling Housing Works to do more of the amazing work they do.

If $200 is a financial reach this year, it’s okay: Believe me, I get it. Many of you are aware how challenging the last 17 months and counting have been for our household. What I’d ask instead is that:

1) you give whatever you can and then

2) share this with one to three loved ones, friends, colleagues, etc.—asking them to make up the difference.

Every donation helps, and we’re all in these many, many fights to do what’s right together.

We live in TL;DR times, so here’s the donation link to help me get to that $32,000 goal:

give.housingworks.org/Mika2026

For more on what Housing Works has been up to this past year, read on below.

How Housing Works is Doing More

Fighting to save PEPFAR. Housing Works continues to fight to restore PEPFAR funding, which focuses on expanding access to HIV prevention, treatment, and care interventions. Launched in 2003, PEPFAR (U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief), which reflects the largest commitment by any nation in the world to address a single disease, has saved an estimated 26 million lives and changed the trajectory of the global HIV epidemic. In 2024 alone, PEPFAR supported 67 million people receiving testing and counseling, including pregnant women and young children. Predictably, the PEPFAR cuts by the current administration have had a devasting and lethal effect. During the first half of 2025, across nine countries, 3.4 million fewer people were tested for HIV.  And in the last year alone, the dismantling of PEPFAR has resulted in the closure of approximately 1,700 HIV service sites worldwide, the loss of more than 16,000 jobs, reductions in critical HIV services, and significant harm to global public health. In the year and a half since these PEPFAR cuts began, Housing Works has worked tirelessly with partners, both publicly and behind the scenes, to call attention to these cuts, restore PEPFAR funding, and hold DC decision makers accountable. Your support will help Housing Works fight until every dollar is restored.

World AIDS Day 2025 in DC. Housing Works protested in front of the White House lawn, displaying bright red banners that showing the number of lives that will be lost around the world as the Trump administration decreases HIV/AIDS funding.

World AIDS Day 2025 in DC. Housing Works protested in front of the White House lawn, displaying bright red banners that showing the number of lives that will be lost around the world as the Trump administration decreases HIV/AIDS funding.

Protecting housing and health care, locally, regionally, and nationally. In the last year, Housing Works has mobilized across New York City, Albany, and Washington, DC, with more than 80 protests, civil disobediences, rallies, and press conferences—direct boots-on-the-ground action that has helped protect housing and health care services. The unrestricted funds raised by BRAKING AIDS® Ride have helped preserve $90 million in the state matching fund for public health programs and saved $100,000 in funding for community health centers from state budget cuts. In New York City, Housing Works restored more than $5 million for HIV programs like The Undetectables, the signature health initiative that empowers people living with HIV to achieve and maintain an undetectable viral load—and boasts an impressive 92% success rate. 

Continuing comprehensive lifesaving services to those living with HIV/AIDS. The above advocacy efforts are in addition to the crucial services and programs Housing Works provides to its clients every single day: HIV testing, diagnosis, and treatment services, affordable housing, health care (HIV-specific services as well as primary care, dental, and mental health), job training, free legal help, substance use treatment, and more.

As I have said before, Housing Works has shown up for what’s right since its 1990 founding—and I trust them to show up for all the important fights ahead.

Please donate to BRAKING AIDS 2026 today! 

BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2025 Slideshow

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A huge thank-you and a hug of solidarity to everyone who supported me for BRAKING AIDS® Ride last weekend. I had a fantastic time in glorious weather with my ride family—spending Day 1 caboosing with rock star Noella Owen and Day 2 riding with Beth & Sydney Shapiro, John Anderson, and other amazing folks we met on the road. Below is a short BRAKING AIDS® 2025 slideshow. A shoutout to Blake Strasser for dubbing our Day 1 cabeese duo Team Hot Girls In the Rear. We became Team Dirty Hot Girls In the Rear early in the day after a bike-chain mishap covered my fingers in bike grease and lube. 😂

Best of all, because of all of you, the BRAKING AIDS® Ride community has already raised over $416,000, and donations will keep coming in over the next 30 days. The depth of my appreciation for the 181 supporters who gave such generous donations, along with encouragement and inspiration, cannot be fully expressed, Every gift, small or large, makes a difference to Housing Works’ amazing work and services in the fights to end AIDS and homelessness and to provide care with dignity for the most vulnerable among us. With government funding being slashed mercilessly in every arena, events like this ride, which bring in unrestricted funding dollars, are more crucial than ever.

Thank you again for being on this journey with me. You all fill me with immeasurable gratitude and love.

And yes, if you meant to: YOU CAN STILL DONATE! give.classy.org/Mika2025

DONATE NOW!

BRAKING AIDS Ride 2025 Donors

Josie Raney • Christina Kelley • Clay Williams & David Groff • Kory Floyd & Brian Seastone • Judith Albert • Michael Gillespie • Steph & Bill Carpenter • Fred Speers & Chase Skipper • Sander Glick • Sherry Wolfe • Brent & Jessica Griffith • Spencer Kubo & Adele Della Torre • Alan Miles • Elizabeth King • Holly Harrison • Christopher Anderson & Mel Stupka • Kenneth Allendoerfer • Andrew Janke • Gregg Passin • Brian Carroll • David Murphy • Michele Bronson • Suzanna De Baca • Carrie Buss • Ann Lefert • Kimberleigh Smith • Nancy Perry • Barbara Ortiz Howard & Shelley Karliner • Francesca Mercurio • Cheryl Stephens • Yu Wong • Lynne Carstarphen • Becky Lien • Anneliese Daskal • Carolyn Lengel • Jodi & Ken Duffield • Terri Schiesl • Mark Biblow • Liz O’Brien • Cassidy Edstrom • James Anderson & Suzy Turner • Eva & Tom Okada • Michael Kharfen • Kelsey Louie • Anne Paterson • Rhona Robbin • Mike Joy • Stephen Okada • Stephanie Carroll • Avram Mack • Jennifer Bailey • Lisa Pinto • Nancy Crochiere • Tom Cardamone • Denise Wydra • Michael Clarke • Marsha Johnson • Terence Fitzgerald • Rhonda Harris • Renee Anderson • Danielle Stein • Matina Madrick • Erik Skarstad • Tad Kulkowski • Jess Carroll & Sharon Glick • Mariamne Eliopoulos • Jon Bierman • Christopher Bram • Ginny Shubert • Anne Friedman • Jennifer Tourje Hairston • Kevin Green • Betty Chen • Daphne Huang • Damon Jacobs • Jon & Rachel Lowy • Noriko Tamura • Robbie Brooks & Matt Lesieur • Karen Henry • Jody Kuh • David Anthony • Daniel Baxter • Rachel Falk • Christina Morris & Alyssa Walsh at Element Natural Healing Arts • Tom Hyry • Britt Weber • Janice Hillman • Vimukti & Elazar Aslan • Peter Staley • Mark Harrington • Allison Dalton • Kathleen Judge • Beth Castrodale • Marisa James • Sigrid Schmalzer • David Meier • Carla Samodulski • Cheryl Grimm • Todd Drezner • Roger Schwartz • Jessica Abel • Laura & Will McGrath • Joe Ayala • Erica Appel • Judith Kromm • Andrew Coamey • Sunetra Rangraj • Blue Chevigny • Evan Spingarn • Susan Conceicao • Catherine Campbell • Torrey Clark • Nancy Boudreau • Andrew Goodman • Brit Liggett • Carylanna Taylor • Jen Simon & Matt Trokenheim • Stephen Scipione • Marissa Walsh • Paul Barron • Alicia Scotti • Julia Daly • Zoe DeRoo • Alison  Kliegman • Adam Singer • Anna Lawrence • Anna Gedrich • Justin Kerenyi • Luke McDonough • Michael Beach • Dan McCallum • Lisa & Kevin Freeman-Cook • Jenna Barry • Talvi Laev • Eileen Pollack • Amanda Guinzburg • Reed Vreeland • Krishna Stone • Amy Tenenbaum • Josh Levy • Frima Fox Hofrichter • Sam Shaber • Leah Bassoff • Barbara Clapp • Candace Rivela • Nat Beagley • Alice Dontanville • Andrea Johnson • Glenn Hammerson  • Rebecca Gilpin • Brigid Palcic • Candy Samples • Betty Lee • Laura Grund • Christine Fischer • Angie Toribio • Geoffrey Wertime • Heather Morrison • Katie Crouch • Robin Rapoport

BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2025: I’m Still Showing Up to Fight

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My favorite cheerleaders at an oasis during BRAKING AIDS RIde 2024

It’s late August. BRAKING AIDS® Ride is coming up in two and a half weeks, and I’ll be riding my bicycle, The Blue Streak, from Philadelphia to NYC in support of Housing Works. With your help, I’ll raise at least $20,000 again this year, and as a bonus, I’ll also exceed the $300,000 milestone on my individual fundraising for this cause over the last 17 years.

If you’re a past supporter and having a TL;DR moment, here’s the donation link to help me get there: give.classy.org/mika2025.  Donations of all sizes are welcome, but a gift of $250 or more is especially helpful and will go a long way toward helping me reach my $20,000 fundraising goal. If a donation isn’t feasible, sharing this blogpost with 5 or 6 people in your network would be fantastic.

Me in my happy place, BRAKING AIDS Ride 2024

Otherwise, here’s what I can share about BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2025:

It’s Okay to Not Be Okay—and Still Show Up To Fight

I’ve gotten questions from some folks about whether I’d be riding this year. As many of my friends know, my job at a youth non-profit was among the casualties of federal funding cuts and other draconian political maneuvers. My partner was laid off a month later from their non-profit job under similar circumstances. We’re hardly the only ones. We hear about more mass layoffs every week.

It’s been one of the most challenging years of my life. I don’t have the wherewithal to be falsely stoic and say it’s fine. It’s not fine. I’m not fine. And yet.

At the same time that JL and I get up every day to look for work and to try to figure out how to boost our spirits and stretch our finances, I’m also keenly aware every minute of every day: We’re among the lucky. We’re safe. We have a roof over our heads, food, water, decent health, savings to live on for a while until we find work. So many people have no housing, no savings, no resources to fall back on, no sources of help and support.

We’re also barraged, terrified, outraged, exhausted each day by reports of war and suffering, by constant attacks on the human rights that should protect all of us. People who support fascist, autocratic thinking and beliefs have been here among us, all along, but they’re newly re-empowered by the bullies in power who are running what’s left of our democracy into the ground—and they know it. Even when I stop reading the headline horrors of the day, I see visible signs of that gleeful hatred everywhere, including my own Brooklyn neighborhood.

Even as I recognize these cataclysms for what they are, I am trying to stay mindful not to let those realities eclipse my own agency and the energy of our own collective power when we work together. Showing up for the struggle in the dark is what makes the dawning of all human progress possible. Just this morning, while slogging through job postings of all things, I re-encountered this timeless bit of Frederick Douglass’ wisdom on that very notion: 

“The whole history of the progress of human liberty shows that all concessions yet made to her august claims have been born of earnest struggle.”

Mr. Douglass had it right. The ACT UP AIDS activists of the early 1980s had it right, too. When it comes to defending your basic rights and the right to exist: Silence equals death. Silence amidst atrocities will not protect anyone.

We each have many choices about how we show up to fight each day. BRAKING AIDS Ride remains one of mine. I will ride and show up as best I can—because I can. Because showing up to fight the important fights is necessary, and this is what I can still do today.

Why Housing Works?

You already know from my past emails: Housing Works does EVERYHING an AIDS organization should do and then some—testing, prevention, and treatment; housing; full medical services; mental health; harm reduction; legal help; and job training and job placement. You have also heard me talk about their decades of advocacy both from within and outside the system. 

That last bit—the advocacy—is more vital than it’s ever been.

Housing Works is able to keep telling truth to power in ways many non-profits can’t because of innovations they invested in decades ago—launching creative revenue streams that secure long-term sustainability. Most non-profits rely heavily on government or corporate money for funding. Housing Works realized early on, during the 1990s Giuliani Administration, that to survive lean times and challenging political landscapes, they needed other independent revenue streams. That’s how the thrift stores, bookstore, and now the cannabis dispensaries came into being. These entrepreneurial businesses enable HW to be nimble and independent; to connect everyday retail consumers with their mission in unique ways; and to provide job opportunities for our community.

What’s more, their relentless advocacy works. The successes below are just two examples among many.

RECENT ADVOCACY SUCCESSES:

  • When the federal government tried to repeal the Affordable Care Act (ACA) during the first Trump administration, Housing Works fought back through civil disobedience—because none of the health outcomes for HIV and other chronic conditions are possible without affordable care. They won, and ACA remained.
  • When the current administration announced that it was freezing funding for PEPFAR, which funds global HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment, Housing Works stepped up immediately to mount weekly protests in DC. It’s no accident that PEPFAR is one of the few health programs that has retained a significant portion of its funding. That was Housing Works’ activism, paid for by your donations.

I continue to support this organization and this cause because Housing Works goes where the important fights are and does what’s audacious and necessary. Years ahead of anyone else, they advocate for the innovations that then become commonsense best practices.Transgender rights and protections. Ending the AIDS epidemic plans. Harm reduction. Affordable care for all. And so much more.

Housing Works has shown up for what’s right for decades—and I trust them to show up for all the important fights ahead.

Please donate today! 

We’re all in this together.

DONATE NOW!
Me, after a training ride a few weeks ago. I got caught in a torrential thunderstorm on the way home.

BRAKING AIDS® 2024: Updates & Slideshow

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Below is a mini-montage from BRAKING AIDS® 2024 this past weekend. I’m grateful to so many people and for so many things—to my chosen ride family, to my body for continuing to stay strong despite how I treated it sometimes when I was younger!), to the weather gods for bestowing us with sunshine, to the 150 people and counting who donated generously to support Housing Works, and especially to my dad (you can catch me hugging him near the end of the slideshow), who taught 7-year-old me to ride a bike by running along side me while I learned how to pedal and balance, how to fall or crash, and then how to get back up again and ride some more.

The 2024 ride is complete, but if you meant to donate, gifts can continue to come in until mid-October. Thank you, everyone, for your love and support!

YES, YOU CAN STILL DONATE TO BRAKING AIDS 2024!
Me on Day 1 of the ride, with my dear friend and riding partner-in-crime Beth Shapiro

Why BRAKING AIDS®, In Less Than 30 Seconds?

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Join the BRAKING AIDS ® 2024 Movement!: Support Mika, The Blue Streak, and Housing Works

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A rainy training ride last weekend.

It’s August. BRAKING AIDS® Ride is coming up in less than five weeks, and I’ll be riding my bicycle, The Blue Streak, from Philadelphia to NYC. The route is new, but my goals are the same: to raise awareness about HIV/AIDS and homelessness and to raise at least $20,000 to support Housing Works and its lifesaving services. 

I’ve been doing BRAKING AIDS® Ride since 2008, in memory of two family friends who died of AIDS-related illnesses—Dennis, who died in 1987, and Curtis, who died in 2003. In that time, I’ve raised $260,000, and with your help, I’ll hit $280,000 or more this year.

For anyone having a TL;DR moment, here’s the donation link to help me get there: https://give.classy.org/mika2024

For all you readers out there, here’s the rundown for BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2024:

Why Housing Works Again and Again

I keep showing up to support Housing Works because they provide transformative services to over 15,000 of the most vulnerable New Yorkers among us every single year—housing, job training, health care (including primary care, dental, and mental health, not only HIV-specific services), free legal help, substance use treatment, and more. I trust this organization to do what’s right, regardless of who is in the White House or in Congress and irrespective of what recent court-decision calamity has come down. Housing Works remains committed to social justice and advocacy andcontinues to fight for what’s crucial for those most in need. They’ve been fighting the fights that need fighting since their founding in 1990, and they’ll do it after election season has come and gone.

What Housing Works Has Been Up to in 2024


Here are some Housing Works initiatives from the past year:

  • Housing for justice-involved individuals, including three transitional hotels; resident access to case management, substance use treatment, harm reduction services, and primary care; help in finding permanent housing; and a broader advocacy campaign to shut down Riker’s Island
  • Rapid-response services to address the migrant crisis, such as two “City Sanctuary” hotels for migrant families with children; case management; and legal services to apply for asylum
  • Developing new housing—67 units for formerly homeless individuals (59 for people with HIV) and 44 low-income units in Hell’s Kitchen, and 22 supportive housing units and 17 low-income units on Pitkin Avenue in Brooklyn
  • Two new health care clinics, one in Hell’s Kitchen and one in East Harlem, for a total of six federally-qualified health centers (FQHCs) in Manhattan and Brooklyn
  • Piloting new, groundbreaking tools to end the AIDS epidemic—long-acting injectable antiretroviral medications, which enable patients to shift from taking a daily pill to receiving six injections per year to achieve treatment adherence and stay healthy
  • Advocacy for Overdose Prevention Centers, a cutting-edge model that saves lives and prevents HIV and Hepatitis C transmission

Please donate today! Donations of all sizes are welcome, but a gift of $250 or more is especially helpful and will go a long way toward helping me reach my $20,000 fundraising goal. (If you can cover the 4% processing fee so 100% of your gift goes to Housing Works, even better.) Please donate as much as you’re able, and together we’ll do our part to in the fight to end AIDS and homelessness.


Some info on what your gift funds:

$250—Pays for 50 hygiene kits for homeless youth, with daily essentials like soap, deodorant, and a pill-sized tablet cloth that expands into a towel when you add water

$600—Covers the cost for 50 rapid HIV tests

$750—Feeds 375 homeless youth during evening drop-in hours at Housing Works’ East New York Health Center

$1,000—Provides 1 month of supportive housing for HIV-positive individuals

$2,000—Completely outfits 7 new single-unit apartments with household items

$3,500—Funds a bus and stipends to send 54 advocates to Albany

$5,000—Funds a bus and stipends to send 54 advocates to Washington, DC, and provides bail money for 10 advocates to take an arrest for civil disobedience

DONATE VIA MY FUNDRAISING PAGE: https://give.classy.org/mika2024

Thank you for your ongoing support and for being a part of my BRAKING AIDS® journey.

Why I Keep Moving: BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2023 (video)

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If anyone asks me how I’m feeling these days, my reply isn’t always terribly inspiring. Weary. Low-grade anxious. The constancy of gun violence in our country. The air-quality nightmares that have plagued the continent because of the smoke from Canadian wildfires and other climate-change environmental horrors. The spate of Supreme Court decisions sending U.S. policy back in time 75 years. These apocalyptic realities are as disheartening as they are unsurprising. Climate change and gun violence have been imminent disasters of our own making for many decades. We knew when the makeup of the current court was being put into place that our current national trajectory was where those confirmations would lead—of dismantling hard-won protections and socioeconomic progress for not only most of the people I love and care about but most people in the U.S. full stop.

I had dinner last week with a dear friend of mine, who, having not received my usual BRAKING AIDS Ride fundraising email yet, asked me if I was riding again. When I said yes and that I felt woefully unprepared, she asked, with an incredulity that took me by surprise, “how do you keep doing it?”

Two weeks ago marked the 42nd anniversary of Lawrence K. Altman’s 1981 New York Times article, “”Rare Cancer Seen in Homosexuals,” considered by many to be the first mainstream media coverage of what became known as HIV/AIDS.

How do I keep doing it?

My answer, interestingly, comes from a slightly younger, not-yet-50 me in September of last year—having just completed the one-day, 85-100-mile BRAKING AIDS Lite 2022, the COVID edition redux. As many of you know, I had the honor of speaking at opening ceremonies last year; Monica, part of the fab video production team who shoots interviews of riders and crew during the event, has also chased after me many times over the years to try to get me to chat about the ride and why I do it. I am not shy about talking but less comfortable on camera. Much as I love Monica, when I see her coming, I usually keep it short and pithy and pedal away as quickly as possible. After the ride last year, she didn’t take no for an answer. I’m bleary-eyed at best when I get off my bike in NYC, so I had no recollection later of what she asked or how I replied.

Turns out my 49-year-old self had accrued a few pieces of wisdom. If you’re curious to hear and see the 3-minute video—me, flanked by Housing Works CEO Charles King and fellow rider Cheyenne Smith, all describing why we love and return to BRAKING AIDS Ride year after year—check it out here:

These clips of Housing Works CEO Charles King, me, and my friend Cheyenne Smith from last year’s BRAKING AIDS Ride sum up why I’ve been showing up for this event since 2008, even when I feel as though I don’t have the mental or physical energy to show up in the ways I want to.

I keep doing it—the “it” being showing up, trying to do my part to make the world a little better, a little more just, a little more kind and compassionate—because we already know what happens when we don’t show up. When we don’t keep fighting for the causes and beliefs that matter.

I don’t know where the other roads will eventually go to—the future paths that emerge when we show up as best we can, as we are, whether we feel energized and optimistic or exhausted and aggrieved. What I do know is that when we make our presence and engagement with what Tony Kushner called “The Great Work” as committed and regular a practice as brushing our teeth, going for a walk, or meditating, disaster is no longer a foregone conclusion and positive change becomes a real possibility.

So I keep moving.

Most AIDS and health care service organizations focus on a few core services and refer their clients to other places for other needs. Housing Works take a holistic approach to its clients, providing them with a range of integrated crucial programs—the key services clients need to shift from emergency survival mode to independent living and thriving: housing, job training, health care (including primary care, dental, and mental health, not only HIV-specific services), free legal help, substance use treatment, and more.  

Additionally Housing Works remains unique in its commitment to social justice and advocacy. I worked at Housing Works for 5 years heading up advocacy communications. One of the last initiatives I was involved in  with them was going to DC repeatedly to protest the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh—one of several judges responsible for the human and civil rights time warp/ tailspin in which now we find ourselves. 

Housing Works shows up. They have been showing up since 1990 and I can vouch for how they show up because I have seen it firsthand for years. I trust them to keep moving and showing up where needed and as needed in the years to come.

Please donate as much as you’re able, and together we’ll keep moving and see where that more hopeful highway goes to.

DONATE TO HOUSING WORKS VIA MY FUNDRAISING PAGE!

Keeping Things Whole

by Mark Strand

In a field

I am the absence

of field.

This is

always the case.

Wherever I am

I am what is missing.

When I walk

I part the air

and always

the air moves in   

to fill the spaces

where my body’s been.

We all have reasons

for moving.

I move

to keep things whole.

from Selected Poems. Copyright © 1979, 1980 by Mark Strand.

VIDEO: BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2022, opening ceremony remarks

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BRAKING AIDS® Ride 2022 took place yesterday, and I was reminded again of all the reasons it’s always one of my favorite weekends of the year. I had the privilege of being asked to give some brief remarks at the opening ceremony kicking off the ride . My dear ride husband and fellow rider Clay Williams recorded and shared it via Facebook live (thank you, Clay), so I’m able to share it here. Below the video is a written transcript of the full speech.


Good morning,

The first person I knew who had AIDS was my mom’s childhood friend Dennis. Dennis, like my mom, came from an immigrant family, and was like an uncle to me. When he and my mom got together, the air thrummed with laughter and loud yakking in Romanian.

Those gatherings were infrequent because Dennis’ job as a journalist had him jumping from one global political hotspot to the next. But then he’d breeze into town and spark a jam session of multiple languages, dancing, eating, drinking. His laugh was a high-pitched cackle, one that would turn your head to see who had made that sound.

He confided to my mom that he was bisexual, but she believed he was gay. Regardless, his sexuality was a secret. And then, in early 1987 Dennis got sick and he stopped globetrotting. He died in December, and his NY Times obituary led with a common lie: “Dennis A. Volman, a reporter for The Christian Science Monitor, died of cancer Monday at the Mount Sinai Medical Center. He was 37 years old and lived in Washington.”

Dennis died a horrific death of physical agony from AIDS. If he had a partner, he took that secret with him. Only Dennis knew how much his soul suffered from shame and fear. I can only imagine it made a difficult dying process far lonelier.

This next bit I’ve never shared publicly. In 2012, I launched a blog about the ride, and I wrote an entry about Dennis. The blog’s main audience is my network, so imagine my surprise in 2013 to get emails from two strangers. One was a former girlfriend of Dennis’ who found the blog through a google search; she shared the post with the other stranger, an old friend of Dennis’s mom. They each emailed me to debate the historical record: Dennis had died of pneumonia while battling cancer. And why did I think Dennis was gay? The family friend was especially insistent it couldn’t have been homosexuality or AIDS. She cited his affairs with women, his poor health in childhood, his chronic pain from a back injury. From these women, I learned that Dennis had kept his illness secret, too. Only his nearest and dearest heard he was sick with “cancer” shortly before he died.

Our email exchanges ended quickly in a stalemate, but they unnerved me enough to ask my mom how she knew Dennis had AIDS. Apparently, she saw he had KS lesions when she visited him in the hospital.

I don’t judge Dennis for keeping secrets. Homophobia and AIDS stigma were prevalent enough that those choices may have protected him, whatever emotional price he paid. But by 2013, he’d been dead for over 25 years. His parents were dead. He had no children. No siblings. How had stigma, fear, and homophobia re-emerged, overshadowing sense and reason, when those lies protected no one anymore?

So why share this fucking heartbreaker of a story?

Because the shadow side of people’s humanity isn’t the only story. That is never the only story. Seeds of social justice were being planted even then. While Dennis was dying in March 1987, the first meeting of ACT UP was held in the West Village. Three years later, Housing Works was founded out of ACT UP’s housing committee. Both organizations demanded action from a government that ignored AIDS for years. These fiery activists didn’t wait for a grand utopian future; they acted with courage in a seemingly hopeless present, defying the cruelty and ignorance around them. They used civil disobedience to demand better drugs today, not tomorrow. They won those fights and saved countless lives.

Today the fight goes beyond medication; it’s a social justice battle—fighting the racism, homophobia, transphobia, and misogyny that fuel the AIDS epidemic in spite of our medical progress. For over 30 years, Housing Works has fought for social justice, anchored by this belief: that whether we are dying or healthy or somewhere in between, all human beings are deserving of housing, food, healthcare, and basic dignity and respect. Whether it’s AIDS, homelessness, the opioid crisis, COVID-19, or the next challenge, I trust Housing Works to lead with compassion, doing what needs to be done.

All of you are full of those same passions. The same courage, kindness, fierceness. The same miraculous blend of love, laughter, grief, and audacity. I see it every time Beth mentions Ira; when Clay passes me on a hill, again; when I see Cheyenne’s dazzling smile; when Amelia or Amy shouts something lewd at me on the road; when Linda envelopes me in a hug; when Wendy makes a bacon joke; when I see Jim stopping on the road to tell someone why we’re riding and when they say, “I don’t know anyone with HIV or AIDS,” he says, “yes, you do. I live with HIV.” What I see all around me is love—and I see it in every one of you.

These stories, our stories, are worth writing, sharing, expanding, and retelling. We come together on this ride to commemorate our dead and honor our best selves by showing up for those in need, and for one another. This ride is citizenry of the highest order. We have been writing that narrative together as a ride family for years, and the time I spend here with all of you every year heals my own soul on its darkest days. So let’s go write the next chapter.

VIDEO: BRAKING AIDS® Ride thoughts, gratitude, a story & hopefully a little inspiration

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At the Little Red Lighthouse under the George Washington Bridge, during an August 14, 2022, training ride. Photo by Beth Shapiro.

I shared the video below last Saturday on social media—one of my favorite stories from when I worked at Housing Works, the BRAKING AIDS® ride beneficiary, and I’m only just getting around to posting it here now. My hope is that it lends some new insight into what’s special about Housing Works as an organization, as well as some inspiration for these lifelong journeys in pursuit of greater social justice, particularly when those roads feel long and rough.

As of this writing, thanks to 120 supporters and counting, I’ve raised 45% of my fundraising goal and am still aiming to reach my audacious $50,000 target in support of Housing Works and the fight to end AIDS and homelessness.

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Me talking about Housing Works and HIV/AIDS progress in The Amazing Garden, Red Hook, Brooklyn, August 27, 2022.

An important correction and follow-up about language (mine, in this case) :

Well into the video above I try to say something about a statistic—69 individuals with HIV transmitted via injection drug use (IDU)—and underscore that the small size of that group could fit into a Housing Works conference room. In my haste to make that point about data and HIV progress, I end up referring to the statistic—69 IDU-transmitted infections—rather than the human beings, in effect verbally conflating the two. That kind of shorthand happens all the time, and I want to call attention to it here as a mistake on my part. My apologies. I should have said “69 people living with HIV who acquired it through injection drug use,” or something along those lines.

If this language distinction seems like hair splitting, it isn’t: In point of fact we all ought to avoid that same kind of mistake when talking about people living with HIV or any other infectious disease for that matter. The language we use matters. It’s reductive and dehumanizing to frame people only in terms of a disease they live with. People are not mere vectors for disease and illness. People are multifaceted human beings with many rich aspects to their identities, and the language we use when we talk about people living with HIV should reflect that. I misspoke here and endeavor to do better. I decided to post the video with the mistake anyway rather than re-recording it because it was a chance to use my own error as a teaching moment. We all misspeak at times, saying thoughtless or insensitive things that can potentially hurt people or fuel stigma even if that isn’t our intention. The terms we use for racial and ethnic groups change over time; we discover we have been mispronouncing the non-English name of a close friend for years without knowing it; people we have known for decades change their names, pronouns, or both, and at times we may slip and use the words we’re more familiar with; some of us have trouble adjusting to “they/them” being used in multiple contexts, sometimes as a singular, gender-neutral pronoun, sometimes as a plural, gender-neutral pronoun. And on and on. Language is organic and evolving, and sometimes we struggle to evolve with it in our own speech patterns, and we make mistakes along the way. Life and progress calls upon us to rethink and relearn our own first language. The only way people get better about these language nuances is through practice, which is why it’s important to acknowledge when we’ve made a mistake and set an intention to do better next time. I made a mistake here and no doubt I will again—and that’s okay. Like everyone, I’m practicing. As I do, I get better, and the more likely that I’ll say it right next time.

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