AIDS quilt holds special meaning for
Metro employee

Memorial comes to Auraria this month; panel of quilt
will honor 1980 Metro graduate

By Deborah
The Metropolitan

The AIDS Memorial Quilt, which will be exhibited on the Auraria Campus next week, has special meaning to a Metro employee who lost her son, a Metro graduate, to AIDS.

Ruth Calderon, who works in Metro Accounting Services, is looking forward to seeing the panel created in her sonâs memory by his family and friends.

Her son, Tim Calderon, was a 1980 Metro journalism graduate who worked at the Auraria Child Care Center and the campus bookstore. He died of AIDS-related complications on Aug. 27, 1991. He was 34.
The second oldest of seven children, Tim was the first to graduate from college, but not the last. He lived to see his mother graduate with a degree in accounting just before he died.

Ruth said doctors tried several treatments, but nothing slowed the progression of his illness.

ãHe was in a lot of pain, but he tried to make each day count, tried not to dwell on anger,ä Ruth said. ãHe loved to garden, and together we planted the flowers that were in full bloom when he died.

ãHis illness brought the family closer. His sisters took turns taking

him to (doctor appointments) and caring for him. And he had a very supportive group of friends and co-workers from his job at AT&T. They would take him to the zoo and the movies and bring him food. He was alert to the end, until he went into a coma and then was gone.ä

Ruth said Timâs friends and family members spent many weekends creating a panel in his honor for the NAMES Project-AIDS Memorial Quilt.

The exhibit is sponsored by the newly formed Colorado chapter of the NAMES Project in collaboration with the colleges at Auraria.

It will open Nov. 30, with a Commemorative Observance and Candlelight Procession at 5 p.m. at St. Elizabethâs Church on the Auraria Campus.

Opening Ceremonies will follow at 6:15 p.m. at the Auraria Events Center.

Students of instructor Julie Mower, who teaches a Metro nursing class about AIDS, also created one of the panels. It was dedicated to a high school teacher who taught one of Mowerâs students.

ãEvery time it is displayed, it makes people feel vulnerable,ä said Billi Mavromatis, a coordinator of the project. ãYou see yourself represented there, when you see the birthdates and death dates, the moms and the children, the loss.ä

Mavromatis said people at the NAMES Project have spent a year to bring the display to Denver. The exhibit is only a small representation of the entire project, which consists of 43,000 individual panels honoring people
who have died from AIDS. If the all the panels were sewn together, the quilt would cover 16 football fields.

The Denver display has almost 1,000 panels. The panels are 3 by 6 feet. Eight panels make a block, which is 12 feet by 12 feet long, and each block represents people from the same geographic area.

The NAMES quilt project began in 1987 when the first 3-by-6 panel, which is about the size of a grave, was created in memory of a man who died from AIDS complications.

More than 77,000 names, which is 21 percent of the 360,000 Americans who have died from AIDS complications, appear on the quilt.

The quilt will be displayed in the Tivoli Student Union Turnhalle  on Nov. 30 from 6:15-9 p.m.; Dec. 1, which is World AIDS Day, from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m.; and Dec. 2 from 10 a.m. to 8 p.m. Closing ceremonies will be Dec. 2 at 5 p.m.

Volunteers are needed to help set up the exhibit, assisting with opening and closing ceremonies  for the candlelight procession. People can also help as greeters, assist with educational activities or sales of NAMES Project merchandise.

Contributions made during the exhibition will be shared among four local organizations: Childrenâs Hospital HIV Program, Empowerment Program Women Against AIDS Project, Howard Dental Center, and Project Angel Heart.

To volunteer, contact the Student Health Center, 556-2525.