MANKATO — She was sent by her professor, one of those deals where an educational event is happening on campus and faculty send their students so they can earn extra credit.
That’s what brought Gretchen Cords to the ballroom in Minnesota State Mankato's Centennial Student Union, where 15 panels of the world-famous AIDS Quilt hung around the perimeter of the ballroom.
She came for extra credit. She left in tears.
“It wasn’t what I expected,” Cords said, slightly shy about her tearful response, and gazing around the room at the panels. “It’s kind of emotional ... I don’t know anybody (who has died of AIDS) myself. But I think this is awesome. It’s a neat way to honor them.”
Wednesday was World AIDS Awareness Day, and that’s why the quilt made a return trip to the ballroom; it was last here in the 1990s.
The impact it had on Cords is exactly why it is here.
Jessica Flatequal, director of the Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Center at Minnesota State Mankato, said the medical advances that have made life easier for people with HIV and AIDS may have prompted some forgetfulness.
The quilt is a visual reminder of the toll AIDS took. The full quilt consists of 5,789 12-feet-by-12-feet blocks, each containing eight panels. Each panel is a memorial to a person who died of AIDS.
And that’s the simple message Flatequal hopes is sent by the quilt’s presence: remembrance of what happened and acknowledgment that there are still people living with HIV and AIDS.
For the complete Free Press story, click on http://mankatofreepress.com/local/x1894462253/AIDS-Quilt-panels-a-visual-reminder
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