It's difficult to stroll through the Yard these days without feeling the tug of socially just causes mixed in with the spring weather.

Last week, in between the raucous first days of the Massachusetts Hall occupation and after Take Back the Night's T-shirt clothesline testimonial to victims of domestic violence, a coalition of public service groups hosted the first of what they plan to make an annual Harvard AIDS Week series of events to raise money and awareness for the African AIDS epidemic.

During the week of April 14th to the 21st, students launched a letter-writing campaign, held a benefit concert, hosted a reading by Jamaica Kincaid and a panel discussion, concluding the week with a day-long fast and fast-breaking benefit dinner on Friday. The week raised money for the AIDS Orphans Education Trust, a charity organization for AIDS orphans.

"We originally wanted to do a dance marathon to raise money for a cause and we picked African AIDS," says Lauren E. Bonner `04, member of Har'd CORPS, a public service group. "We wanted and we needed a cause that would touch the global community. We thought it was a really important cause."

Benjamin M. Wikler `03 expanded the idea beyond the original single event. In between the initial Har'd CORPS meeting to plan an AIDS benefit concert and the first meeting of many student groups interested in AIDS Week, Wikler helped put together the Harvard AIDS Coalition to continue AIDS awareness on campus beyond the middle of April and make it into a permanent project on campus.

Bonner explains that through a lucky coincidence BASIC-Boston Area Students Involved in the Community-was planning a benefit dance a week later than Har'd CORPS's ideal benefit concert date. BASIC had the event idea and no cause yet, and the issue of AIDS in southern Africa came to anchor the two benefits into a week of AIDS awareness events.

"It started out with this benefit concert idea and the idea to help a specific cause. It really just took off. It was almost out of control," Bonner says. "It definitely started out over dinner saying hey-what charity should we do?"

"It was sort of like striking while the iron was hot," says Stephen N. Smith `02, the founder and director of Har'd CORPS, of the enthusiasm he was able to generate for AIDS Week. "We wanted to do something that was timely and where any amount of money could really go a long way. This was unique because it was an issue around which a lot of people were wanting to get involved."