The following blog post was written and submitted by King’s High School Social Justice student Trinity Chanel Hepper in recognition of World AIDS Day 2012.
As today, Dec. 1, marks World AIDS Day, King’s High School Social Justice class, taught by Ryan Crane, decided to make a bold statement on the campus of King’s High School.
Some of the students met early Friday morning, Nov. 30, before school and set up 250 stark white crosses on the lawn in front of the high school, symbolizing the 250 lives lost every hour from AIDS.
Senior Trinity Chanel Hepper, a student in the social justice class and club said, “The crosses almost symbolized grave crosses that you would see in like a military graveyard. I felt shock from how depressing it looked and from the number of people that die in just one hour from this terrible disease. My classes are longer than an hour and 250 people die in less time than I am in my class. I really hope our idea and our action made an impact to the student body of King’s. I know it got people talking which is always good.”
Some associate AIDS with people from other or third world countries, but it’s right in our own backyard. In 2010 the estimated number of people in the U.S. who were diagnosed with AIDS was 1,163,575; of these, 226,593 were adult and adolescent females, 9,475 were children under 13, and 893,058 were adult and adolescent males.
The social justice class aims to raise awareness different injustice topics happening around the world—even locally.
“Kids that attend King’s have such a great opportunity to change the world, and for us as a class to bring awareness to [the student body] is a good thing,” said Mr. Crane. “Hopefully it will plant a seed, and make them have a desire in whatever they do in their future and even through their job to help change and make a difference. They all know of injustices, but they don’t know about them, in detail. So we try to bring awareness to them and ways to help solve and create problem solvers out of them.”
“AIDS is a worldwide problem and our students and young people need to be aware of it,” said Trinity. “The crosses put on the front lawn of the high school did just that.”
