25 faces: Leaders fighting HIV/AIDS in Colorado

21 Dayna Menninger

Dayna Menninger wasn’t even a thought when the HIV/AIDS crisis first gripped the country in the 1980s. The first cases were discovered almost two decades before she was born, but the 16-year-old soon-to-be 11th grader at the Denver Waldorf School has been more involved in the issue than almost anybody – she’s raised a lifetime total of $46,000 for Colorado AIDS Project through AIDS Walk.

Menninger’s parents have made AIDS Walk an annual event all her life, and her mother is a psychiatrist who works with people who have HIV/AIDS – “She was involved before I was born,” Menninger said.

“One year I told my parents one day I was interested” in raising money under her own name in AIDS Walk, she said. “At first it was my parents raising money under my name, but these past few years I’ve done it by myself. It’s a lot of hard work, but it definitely pays off.”

Last year Meninger raised more than $8,000 on her own, by hand-delivering letters to local business owners, emailing over 300 family and friends, and sometimes even going door to door – which she said is a lot of work in proportion to the dollars that come in, but it can still be fun. This year she hopes to raise at least $8,000 again.

“It’s this feeling that this is what I do – this is something I can own and accomplish,” she said.

Menninger said the perceptions of HIV/AIDS among her peers can vary – “My guess is they probably don’t think about it that much,” she said. “I know a lot more about HIV than I would have otherwise.”

She said she sometimes talks to friends about HIV, emphasizing that it’s still a life-long disease.

“It’s a really serious illness that there is no cure for. There are a lot of important illnesses out there, but HIV is one we still don’t know enough about.”

She said most of what her friends know come from news stories, which have been misleading – recently a few misinterpreted a news story thinking that HIV had been cured.

“That turned out to be false,” Menninger said – which she was sure to point out to them. But “most of them have an awareness it’s a serious illness that can affect anybody,” She said.

This year Menninger has been busy finding donated items to put up for a silent auction at LaLa’s Bar and Pizzaria on 7th and Logan, which was held on July 31 to raise additional funds for CAP through Menninger’s entry. Some additional time is spent training – you might recognize her at AIDS Walk – because she travels the route on a unicycle.

When each summer comes around, most teenagers are eager for school to get out so they can spend some time to themselves, or earn a little spending cash in a seasonal job. But Meninger sacrifices joining her peers to do her volunteer work.

“Spending the time can be a struggle,” she said, “but it’s so fulfilling.”