LOS ANGELES — Sex educator and Wicked Pictures contract performer Jessica Drake, along with Team Wicked, raised $21,755 for AIDS charities at AIDS Walk Los Angeles on October 23. The annual fund-raising event was held, for the first time, at Grand Park in Downtown Los Angeles.
While walking in support of AIDS charities, they urged voters to reject California’s Proposition 60 — which will be on the Nov. 8 ballot and would mandate the use of condoms in all adult films shot in the state.
Team Wicked surpassed last year’s fundraising total of $15,416, placing tenth among the more than 1000 teams participating and surpassing the totals earned by other returning teams such as Paramount Pictures, ABC 7 and the Fox Entertainment Group. Team Wicked was designated a gold team after finishing among the top fundraising teams at the 32nd annual event, which overall, raised more than $1.7 million for AIDS organizations in Los Angeles.
Drake, who was among the top individual fundraisers, was designated a star walker for raising $9025 and finishing ninth among all individual fundraisers. Team member and adult performer Ryan Driller was the squad’s next top fundraiser with $2500, followed by Jessica Johnson with $1500, Venus Lux with $1100, Vanessa Veracruz with $1025, and Katrina Jade and Tyler Nixon, who each earned $1000. All seven were selected as star walkers at the event for their individual fundraising efforts.
“I am very grateful and very proud of all our team members, supporters and friends who helped make this event our most successful walk,” Drake said. “We were able to raise a great deal of money for AIDS charities and were also able to raise awareness and spread our message of saying no to Prop. 60 and the deceptive campaign they are running to drive away the adult industry out of California."
“We are extremely proud of Jessica and Team Wicked for surpassing last year’s fundraising total for this great event,” said Wicked Pictures President Steve Orenstein. “This year, the team had 38 members and earned a total of 185 individual donations. We’re especially pleased to see such a great response from industry members who joined Team Wicked in its two-fold goal of raising needed funds for AIDS charities and for bringing greater awareness about Prop. 60 and its proponents’ blatant effort to mislead voters about the real purpose of this proposition.”
Drake, in addition to her fundraising activities and her work in “Jessica Drake’s Guide to Wicked Sex,” is a regular columnist for Style Caster, and recently appeared on BuzzFeed’s original series “Modern Sex.” Additional contributions from Drake this year have appeared in outlets such as Uproxx, AskMen, CNBC, Vice, BuzzFeed, Bustle, Maxim, Refinery 29, Prime Mind, GQ, Your Tango, and many others.
Established in 1985, AIDS Walk Los Angeles was the world’s first walk dedicated to fighting HIV/AIDS. Over the last 31 years, the event has raised more than $79 million for HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment, and advocacy programs.
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