Beverly Fawcett says AIDS is a disease people still have a hard time talking about.
"People whisper about it," Fawcett said. "They think it's not respectable like cancer, and HIV and AIDS are still back behind the door. That makes it hard to get help."
From 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. Monday, which is World AIDS day, a Craven County nonprofit support organization will try to raise awareness of the disease by displaying 12 pieces of a 5,789-block quilt. Each piece has eight panels with pictures that tell the stories of people who have died of HIV or AIDS.
One of the panels on one of the quilt pieces this year honors Michael Jacob Chandler of Swansboro, who was born in 1963 and died of AIDS in 1995. Another panel honors "the unacknowledged who walked the shores of Carteret County, North Carolina."
"It dissolves you to tears, and you don't even have to know anybody," said Fawcett, treasurer of Craven CARES, which stands for County AIDS Resources, Education and Support.
Two years ago, Fawcett made a panel for the Rev. Curtis Sisco Jr., an Episcopal priest she met through a friend. AIDS killed Sisco, and Fawcett's quilt panel included a stole, a copy of a Psalm and a small metal cross to remember him.
The whole AIDS quilt weighs 54 tons and takes up 1,293,000 square feet. It was been displayed in its entirety six times at the Washington Monument in Washington, D.C. If every person looked at each of the 46,312 panels for a minute, it would take 33 days to view it, Fawcett said. The names on the quilt represent 17.5 percent of Americans who have died of AIDS, she said.
Cleve Jones, a political activist, and several friends organized the NAMES Project Foundation in 1987 in San Francisco. The organization now manages the quilt and names in Atlanta. People can send the organization new names for the quilt.
The quilt pieces will be displayed at the Christ Episcopal Church ministry center on Middle Street. Several cities in the state are displaying panels of the quilt, but New Bern will display the most pieces, Fawcett said.
Craven CARES will hold a candlelight service at 7 p.m. Monday at the ministry center. The quilt pieces will be separated by one foot each so people can walk between them. During the service, people will stand around the quilt, call out names of people who have died of AIDS and extinguish candles for each one.
"It's kind of scary in a way that these people had to die for this to come together," Fawcett said. "But the service is always truly touching."
AIDS: The disease and quilt by the numbers
* There are at least 300 people living with HIV in Craven County.
* Craven County ranks 21st in the state in the number of HIV cases and sixth in the number of people who have AIDS.
* Around the world, 33 million people have HIV.
* The names on the AIDS quilt represent 17.5 percent of Americans who have died from the disease.
* The quilt weighs 54 tons.
* The quilt takes up 1,293,000 square feet.
Sources: Craven County Health Department, Craven CARES To see more of the Sun Journal or to subscribe to the newspaper, go to http://www.newbernsunjournal.com/. Copyright (c) 2008, Sun Journal, New Bern, N.C. Distributed by McClatchy-Tribune Information Services. For reprints, email tmsreprints@permissionsgroup.com, call 800-374-7985 or 847-635-6550, send a fax to 847-635-6968, or write to The Permissions Group Inc., 1247 Milwaukee Ave., Suite 303, Glenview, IL 60025, USA.
Copyright (C) 2008, Sun Journal, New Bern, N.C.