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Written by Louis Weisberg, Staff writer
Jul 28, 2010
Since the beginning of the AIDS epidemic, gay bars have played a pivotal role in disseminating information about HIV disease and prevention. They’ve also contributed significantly to fundraising for local AIDS service organizations.
Raising the Bar, a statewide fundraiser for AIDS Walk Wisconsin, draws on the bars’ unique ability to raise both awareness of the disease and dollars to fight it. Begun in 2006, the fundraiser is open to all LGBT and LGBT-friendly bars in the state. This year’s event launched recently but is still adding participants. (See sidebar on page XX for a list of currently participating bars as well as contact information for joining the effort.)
In addition to money that participating bars raise through such activities as drink specials, auctions, bingo, live performances and the sale of $1 Raising the Bar tags, fundraising is augmented with a $5,000 challenge grant from the Johnson and Pabst LGBT Humanity Fund. The bar team that raises the most cash gets to add that amount to its total.
Organizers at the AIDS Resource Center of Wisconsin, which benefits from AIDS Walk, aim to enlist participation from at least 10 bars this year and to raise a minimum of $25,000. To date, the bars have raised $179,041.
The bars are an “ideal” way to boost AIDS awareness, especially among young gay and bisexual men, says Tad Gospodarek, ARCW director of development. The overall rate of new HIV infections in Wisconsin climbed 11 percent last year, and young men who have sex with men had the greatest increase. In fact, reported HIV cases among young men who have sex with men have risen 170 percent in the greater Milwaukee area and 247 percent in other metropolitan counties of Wisconsin over the last decade.
Perhaps not coincidentally, Gospodarek says, younger gay and bisexual men have become increasingly less involved in such events as AIDS Walk. “(Raising the Bar) is a way to pull them in to support the cause and to understand that this is really affecting the younger generation of gay men more so than any other specific age population,” Gospodarek says.
“The younger group – if it’s not put in front of them, it’s not there,” says Steve Tucker, co-owner of PJs Oshkosh. He sees Raising the Bar as an opportunity to put HIV/AIDS back on people’s radar.
“Even if (the event) makes one or two or three people aware that it’s still out there and it’s still a problem, then we’ve won,” he says.
In addition to participating in Raising the Bar, Tucker has ARCW staff visit his bar every three months to conduct free HIV testing.
Brian Volker, who’s coordinating Raising the Bar efforts at Woody’s, says young people’s general sense of invincibility, which has been reinforced by medical progress, has created apathy toward HIV.
“People in general just aren’t paying attention the way they used to,” he adds.
Volker is particularly troubled by online dating profiles in which men advertise that they’re HIV-positive but want to have sex without protection. “There’s different strains out there,” he says. “Just because you’re already positive doesn’t mean you can’t get reinfected with a different strain or reinfect someone else with another strain.”
Volker believes the bars can contribute to spreading information such as this through events like raising the bar.
Cory Bartel, co-owner of D.I.X., which opened June 11, says he joined Raising the Bar not for any one particular reason, but because it’s the right thing to do.
“It’s a very worthy cause,” he says. “Everyone knows someone who’s infected with HIV or has breast cancer or something. I think we need to help because our healthcare system sucks.”
