Good morning! Thank you to CAP Northwest for bringing us together today for the 41st AIDS walk Northwest. To the wonderful leaders, the board, the staff, and the CEO Kevin Bumatay at CAP Northwest, they are amazing.
I also want to say thank you to all the teams, the individuals- raising more than $20,000 is an amazing accomplishment. I saw the teams that have been organized, the volunteers who are here, the hugs at the front entrance, thank you huggers! This is what Oregon looks like, and it’s a wonderful day here and I’m just so pleased and proud to be here with you.
You are here because you know that CAP Northwest provides life-saving services. For years now, CAP Northwest has been there for the community in prevention work, in healthcare work, in housing work, in direct healthcare services for those who need it.
You’re here because you love them and you love what they do, and you’re here to support them, and I want to say thank you for being here.
I think we all know the perilous times we are living in, how important it is that you’re all here today. The Trump Administration is literally punishing communities across the country by cutting vital services like prevention and healthcare, just because he can.
We believe in healthcare as a right, we believe in taking care of people, we believe in saying if you are living courageously with HIV, you will be supported.
He doesn’t care if he’s making things more unaffordable, he doesn’t care if people are losing the care they need, but we care. Because here in Oregon, we stand up for each other, we stand up for our community, we stand up to that bully in the White House.
Being here today says that you are not scared and we are not going to go back. We are not going to go back, no matter what he says. So this walk today is about two things in my mind. It is about love, and it is about strength. That love might be the way you remember someone that was lost, so many years ago, before there was life-saving treatment for HIV. That love can be yourself, because you are courageously living with HIV today. That love could be someone you know who is, or you just love helping other people. That’s what this walk is about, it’s about love. And it is about strength. Because love has to be accompanied by strength in these difficult times.
I am old enough to remember the loss in the 80’s and the 90’s. I remember the stigma, and it has not gone away. I remember walking in the march, with my ACT UP t-shirt with a pink triangle on it, knowing that silence would be death, but action equals life.
So that’s what this is about today. We are standing up for life, we are standing up for love, and we are doing it together.
We don’t do anything alone. We do things together, and for all the individuals who are living every day with HIV, thank you for being courageous, thank you for talking about your stories, thank you for inspiring and empowering all of us to be there with you to support you. Thank you to CAP Northwest for never forgetting what it means to take care of our neighbor.
As your Governor, I’m going to use every tool that I can to fight back against the Trump Administration to make sure we have healthcare in this state, because we take care of our community. I love this state, and I love you.
Thank you for walking today, thank you for standing up, thank you for loving and being strong.