Come Tailgate at The NO/AIDS WALK This Sunday

We hope your enjoying today’s lovely weather and still basking in the glow of the Saints win against the Bears last weekend. And, we hope you’re planning on coming out this Sunday, September 25th for the 22nd annual NO/AIDS WALK in Audubon Park. Everything kicks off at 8:00 AM with food, drinks, music, children’s activities and even stations for your four-legged family members.

In fact, with everything we’ve got planned, this year’s NO/AIDS WALK should make for a great tailgating party before this Sunday’s game against the Houston Texans. Just think about it. We’ve got great food lined up from Louisiana Pizza Kitchen Uptown including jambalaya, gumbo, pulled pork, hot dogs, hamburgers, red beans, pasta salad, the always popular cashew chicken salad, and for the first time ever, pizza. Pair that with an ice cold beer, bloody mary or screwdriver or soda or water and enjoy some great music with friends and family and it sounds like a great pre-game plan to us. Throw in an easy 5K walk with beautiful weather and you don’t even have to worry about putting on any pounds from a little too much pre-game fun.

The Walk itself kicks off at 10:00 AM, works it way through uptown and usually takes an hour or less, so there’s more than enough time to make it somewhere before kickoff at noon. If you’re inclined to stick around we’ll have the game on the radio playing over the speakers throughout the park. If you can’t make it to the dome, a game day picnic sounds like a great afternoon to us.

While we have your attention, we wanted to remind you of a few WALK Day “housekeeping” items:

• Please make sure to arrive by 9:30 AM. Since we have a police escort who block off the roads to make the WALK safe from traffic, they’ll start blocking off Magazine Street at 9:45 AM. Getting there by 9:30 keeps you from having to deal with any traffic jams that morning.

• Registration, food drinks and music kick off at 8:00 AM. Getting there early not only means you get to avoid any lines, but it also means you can be one of the first to take your team photos with nola.com and make your team sign at team registration. We’ll have all the materials (wood stakes, poster board, markers, etc.), you just need to bring your creativity. The signs are first come, first serve though, so get their early to claim yours.

• Our morning program involves not only emcees Chet Porciau and Nancy Parker, but also the Camel Toe Lady Steppers and a Zumba warm-up with some special guests.

• We have filled all of our volunteer positions for this year’s WALK. If you have registered as a volunteer and have not yet been contacted, please come out and enjoy the day. If you would like to help with breakdown after the event, from noon till about 2:00 PM, please feel free to stick around and help with that. We’ll have the Saints game on the radio broadcasting in the park.

Thanks so much for your support and we’ll see you on Sunday at Audubon Park!