Ann Louise Copeland; Co-Founder of Group for Women With AIDS

Ann Louise Copeland, 48, who campaigned for awareness of women’s vulnerability to AIDS. When she learned of her AIDS diagnosis during a blood donation screening in 1987, Copeland realized that she had contracted the virus from a man she dated briefly who later died. Feeling isolated as a female heterosexual victim, she co-founded Women at Risk in 1991, a service organization that runs support groups for women infected with HIV and AIDS in the South Bay, Santa Monica and San Fernando Valley. She also served as the organization’s executive director. The Women at Risk board conducted a meeting at her bedside shortly before her death in a hospice. On Feb. 11 in Lomita of the complications of AIDS.