Bike-a-thon to raise money for AIDS prevention

UConn Husky Sport students and children from Hartford’s North End are raising funds to benefit an international effort aimed at slowing the spread of the AIDS virus, and they need your help.

More than 100 children from John C Clark Elementary School, the Kevin D. Anderson Center, and the Catholic Worker House will ride in the One for One Bike-a-Thon to raise money for Safe Blood for Africa – One Million Lives, an initiative that purchases blood testing kits for African villages, hospitals, and health care facilities to help avoid passing on HIV contaminated blood.

The event will take place on Sunday, April 20 from 1 to 5 p.m., at Keney Park, Hartford.

Used bicycles, helmets, and pledges are needed. Financial donations may be made online or by mail.

Donations of bikes and helmets in children’s and adult sizes – the bikers are ages seven to 14 – may be dropped off on the Storrs campus at Gampel Pavilion, Room 208 (enter by the Natatorium entrance), or in Hartford, at Clark Elementary School on Clark Street.

The event is being organized by students involved in Husky Sport, a service learning program offered by the Neag School of Education that connects UConn students and student-athletes with North End Hartford youths through school-based activities.

The program promotes physical activity, good nutrition, and healthy lifestyles.

Co-sponsors are the Student-Athlete Advisory Committee and the City of Hartford.