Music, meat pies, fashion shows and cookbooks raise funds for AIDS.

Presbyterian congregations and individuals have raised over $250,000 for the Towards a World without AIDS campaign since it was launched at General Assembly in June 2004. In addition to raising funds they have brought awareness to their communities.

In Baddeck, Reverends Lloyd and Shirley Murdock raised over $1,100 with a Christmas house tour. Visitors donated $5 to tour seven rooms decorated with the many unique Christmas ornaments, nativity sets and decorations they have collected over the years.

Music has played an important role in fundraising efforts. Armour Heights, Toronto, is selling a CD recorded by their choir for the campaign. Kerrisdale, Vancouver, hosted a concert with internationally recognized pianist Jane Coop and congregation member Andrew Dawes, a violinist and founder of the Orford String Quartet. These Juno award winning musicians performed the music of Beethoven. Posters put up in area churches, schools and storefronts helped garner a lot of community support, including the loan of a concert piano for the evening. With 300 tickets sold, they raised over $8,000 for the campaign. Minister Glenn Inglis reported, "The success of the evening is making us dream of other possibilities of educating the community in support of the development work of our church."

The Presbytery of Ottawa launched its fundraising and awareness efforts with a candlelit concert titled Songs of Love: Hearts of Compassion on the Saturday before Valentine's Day. Renowned mezzo-soprano Julie Nesrallah, accompanied by pianist Chris Devlin, performed music from Carmen, The Marriage of Figara and Samson and Dalila, among others before a full house at St. Andrew's in Ottawa. The concert raised over $8,600.

On the other end of the musical spectrum the youth groups from Knox, Waterloom and St. Andrew's, Kitchenerm worked together to stage a city-wide concert geared to youth. Five local rock/punk/ska bands, including Asher, Ska-papas, Something Useless, and Analog Wry, donated their time to play for 200 youth. Mike Bums, elder at nox, Waterloo, was extremely pleased with the event. He explained, "the event goes far beyond the money raised. The empowerment of the two youth groups, raising money from a non-traditional group, the outreach to the community, the peer education about AIDS between the music sets, and bringing youth into a church that they might never otherwise step a foot in are all incredibly valuable,"

St. George's, London, is collaborating with the AIDS Committee of London on a ten month education and fundraising initiative. Four fundraising meals, a special appeal in October and coin boxes to be distributed during Advent will help raise funds. Seventy-five per cent of the proceeds will go to PWS&D and twenty-five per cent will be directed to the AIDS Committee of London.

Other London churches have also been busy. New St. James has been running an entire Lenten series with special speakers on HIV/AIDS including a professor from the University of Western Ontario providing information on the latest developments in AIDS research. Westmount has been selling meat pies to raise funds. The Westmount Mall allowed them to use their community service booth for one week to promote the campaign and take orders for the frozen pies.

Knox, Waterloo, set an ambitious goal of raising $25,000 over three years to support the campaign and raised $13,000 in just three months. Fundraising events included a fashion show, a cookbook created and sold by the church, and a Christmas craft and bake sale.

Knox, Wanham, dedicated their fall community dinner to the AIDS campaign. Usually the funds help with the regular expenses for this small congregation. In the fall however they were within budget, and decided to support the AIDS campaign. An ad in the local weekly newspaper drew in 95 people who raised $1,420 that evening. Minister Shirley Cochrane reports, "My most exciting moment came when a woman, who does not attend church, came up to me and quite excitedly said, 'Wow! I didn't know the Presbyterian Church did stuff like this!'"