BARRY WILLIAMS /Special

Nursing student Dennis Flores (right) leads a contingent from Kennesaw State University's WellStar School of Nursing during the 16th annual AIDS Walk Atlanta fund-raising event in October. Flores organized the team from Kennesaw State, which raised more than $13,500 for AIDS Walk Atlanta.

Kennesaw State University nursing faculty, students and friends were out in force for AIDS Walk Atlanta on Oct. 15, thanks to the efforts of senior nursing student Dennis Flores.

Flores plans to make HIV/AIDS his nursing specialty and is doing a clinical rotation at Grady Hospital's Infectious Disease Center. When he heard that only a dozen people from KSU had participated in the AIDS Walk Atlanta event two years ago, he believed that the WellStar School of Nursing could do better.

"I have been pestering and badgering people all semester," said Flores, who designed and got funding for T-shirts and arranged for team bus transportation to Piedmont Park in Atlanta. "They tell us as nursing students to support the things that we're really concerned about, and this is it for me."

The KSU team of 140 (about 125 walkers/runners) placed first in funds raised among all college and university teams and first in recruitment out of the 530 teams that participated. At last count, the team had raised more than $13,500, which will be used by AID Atlanta to provide services to people living with HIV/AIDS in Georgia.

"I'm so proud of him and everyone on the team. Dennis really put his heart into it and did a great job," said Donna Chambers, lecturer at KSU's nursing school and president of the Georgia Chapter of the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.

- Laura Raines