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The Ryan White Letters Collection consists of almost 6000 letters and cards written to Ryan White and his family during the last years of his life. After being diagnosed with HIV/AIDS at the age of 13, Ryan’s legal fight to attend school despite his disease brought him to the forefront of public discussion about AIDS and its victims in the late 1980s. Thousands of letters came to Ryan from all over the world, many of them from children and teens who had seen his story in the media and wanted Ryan to know he was loved and supported. After Ryan’s death, many more people sent cards and notes of sympathy to his mother and sister. These letters and cards are now in the permanent collection of The Children’s Museum of Indianapolis.