At the height of the AIDS epidemic, in the summer of 1985, 4,500 people gathered at Paramount Studios in Los Angeles for the inaugural AIDS Walk. They were rallying in the face of prejudice and misinformation, raising funds for loved ones, and showing up in public to help destigmatize the disease that the White House had laughed off. AIDS Project Los Angeles organized the event hoping to raise $100,000 for its programs and wound up besting its goal more than six times over, all the while sparking a nationwide movement.

In Portland, Cascade AIDS Project held its first annual AIDS Walk Northwest (formerly “From All Walks of Life”) later that summer. On September 13, the local event celebrates its 40th annual pledge walk, which brings people together not only to fundraise for the nonprofit but to celebrate and remember the lives of loved ones lost to AIDS, raise awareness, and continue to erode HIV stigma. It’s about “being out in the streets, showing up with as many people as possible to make noise,” says Adie B. Steckel, CAP’s manager of grants and public affairs. Drag icon Poison Waters, a staple of the walk, returns as emcee this year, leading the crowds down Portland’s streets and across its bridges in a vibrant display of solidarity and resistance. And at the prewalk party, tents hosted by various community partners and queer-owned businesses dot the waterfront, including a station offering free rapid HIV testing on-site. Steckel describes it as an “LGBTQ+ public health fair.”

Last year, 2,000 participants attended AIDS Walk Northwest and brought in $218,000. This year, as the Trump Administration works hard to eliminate AIDS and HIV prevention and assistance funding, the walk aims to raise $300,000, which benefits CAP’s critical HIV/AIDS services, including its short- and long-term housing assistance and HIV/STI testing and linkage to care. (Those interested in fundraising can register on CAP’s website.)

AIDS and HIV were emergent in the ’80s. “People were dying in cities all over the country,” Steckel says. “AIDS was an issue that was so deeply important at the time that was being ignored by all levels of government.” Today, it’s easy to mistake progress in treatment for a cure. But disinterest and disinvestment in BIPOC and LGBTQ+ communities, which are disproportionately impacted by HIV, echoes through administrations, from Reagan’s callous response then to Trump’s hostility now. The current administration’s “skinny” budget for fiscal year 2026 proposed to eliminate over $1.5 billion in HIV prevention programs at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Steckel says those cuts translate to a loss of over $400,000 for CAP.

On September 1, the Republican-controlled House Appropriations Committee announced its FY26 spending bill, a proposal far beyond Trump’s budget cuts that hopes to reduce federal funding for domestic HIV/AIDS programs by at least $1.7 billion. The bill proposes slashing $1 billion in CDC HIV prevention funding, including $220 million from the Ending the HIV Epidemic (EHE) initiative, which Trump himself launched in 2019. Also on the chopping block: the Ryan White Program, which provides comprehensive medical care and treatment to low-income people with HIV, as well as the Minority HIV/AIDS Initiative Fund for communities of color.

Like the hundreds of other health centers that count on these grants, CAP’s operations would be severely curtailed should the bill pass. At present, the nonprofit serves 20,000 people each year. While it’s used to scaling services according to available resources, Steckel says, these drastic funding cuts force the organization into a state of uncertainty. They threaten to reduce both its ongoing outreach services and, more acutely, the long-term housing support it offers, taking away checks some folks have relied on for years to cover their rent. In terms of HIV testing, Steckel says, without these vital resources, “more people in our community wouldn’t know their status and wouldn’t be connected to life-saving treatment, meaning we’d lose hard-fought progress toward the end of the epidemic.”

AIDS Walk Northwest is one of the two fundraising events CAP holds annually to supplement public funding (the other being its live art auction of curated artwork from Pacific Northwest artists). While federal and state grants provide the bulk of its budget, independently generated funds are a critical resource. “It’s the most valuable kind of dollar that we can get,” Steckel says, “because it’s money that we can use to fill the gaps that our contracts and grants don’t fill.”

For its 40th annual AIDS Walk Northwest, CAP teamed up with community partners like the OHSU Partnership Project, Westside Queer Resource Center, The Marie Equi Center, Rahab’s Sisters, and queer-owned businesses including Endless Wonder Books and the clothing brand Gaddies.

 Festivities kick off at 9am at Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park, and the walk starts at the Willamette Greenway and Eastbank Esplanade at 10:30am. Walkers can make protest signs, play yard games and mini golf, and get their picture taken with the Imperial Sovereign Rose Court queens. Poison Waters has promised to lead prewalk stretching with fellow queen Bolivia Carmichaels. Steckel stresses that financial contributions are only one aspect of the event. Seeing thousands of people gathering in support, Steckel says, “It’s like a mirror of the power of the collective being greater than the individual.”