Nearly 300 people sauntered, strolled and ambled their way through downtown Saturday morning, raising money for the Douglas County AIDS Project.

The annual walk raised $12,400 for the agency, which serves around 80 HIV-positive community members and reaches out to thousands more through education projects.

“Have you ever seen such a sight in your life?” asked Geri Summers, executive director of DCAP. “OK, maybe, but it’s still exciting.”

The walk started at Maceli’s, 1031 N.H., and ended there with a catered breakfast for the walkers – which included teams from local businesses, health agencies, Kansas University student groups and churches, as well as dozens of individual walkers.

“I wish more people would come out and walk, to support the cause,” said Barbara Willis, who walked with a team from the Unity Church of Lawrence.

Willis said she’d known several people who died of AIDS.

“I think it gets overlooked in all the causes,” she said. “It’s just a little way I can help.”

The fear of AIDS isn’t as palpable as it was during the 1980s, thanks largely to drugs that help HIV-positive patients live longer.

But Summers said 18-to-25-year-olds have the highest rate of infection, not realizing that, even with drugs, battling the virus is a tough proposition.

That means DCAP still faces big challenges.

“They’ve got (safe-sex) education, but they think, ‘So what? I’ll take a pill,'” Summers said of young people.

Among the walkers Saturday was 17-year-old Eric Hazen, who said he had recently been diagnosed with HIV.

He said he hoped the walk would help people “see that there are people out there when you need help.”

And he was gratified by the sight of so many participants.

“Right now,” Hazen said, “it means the world to me.”