Massapequa Schools Learn AIDS Awareness

HIV/AIDS has touched the lives of millions of people worldwide. In observance of National AIDS Awareness week, Massapequa High School's Ames campus held a special educational assembly for its students about the deadly disease.

According to Ames principal Pat DiClemente, the Massapequa school district takes AIDS, and the safety of its students, very seriously.

"Today, December 1st, is recognized as World AIDS Day," he said Wednesday. "One of the things we planned to do is to bring an assembly together, so that we can have some people speak to us and educate us. It'll be important for us to spend 35 minutes this morning listening to two people that we respect a great deal, and we're thankful they took the trouble to come here."

Jimmy Mack and Julie C., two members of the Alison Gertz Foundation for AIDS Education's AIDS Awareness Program, known as "Love Heals," were present to speak candidly with the students this morning.

Ames health coordinator Denise Baldinger helped set up the event.

"Every year we set up speakers for HIV/AIDS Awareness Week," she said. "During National AIDS Awareness week, the students are actually getting lessons in their health classes, they're handed out AIDS ribbons, and there's posters all over the school, just to promote awareness that this disease is preventable, and education is our best defense against it."

Mack said his organization was started by the unlikeliest of people.

"The actual Foundation was started by a young woman named Alison Gertz," he said. "She contracted HIV in the 1980's from her very first sexual encounter at the age of 16. She was sick for years, and it wasn't until she was in college that someone thought to test her for AIDS. It caused a national sensation, because here was a wealthy white girl with the 'gay' disease."

With the knowledge of what had happened to her, Gertz went out and spoke at schools in the tri-state area with a simple yet chilling message: "If I can get this, anyone can."

When Gertz succumbed to her illness in 1992, her friends decided to do something important in her memory.

"Her friends got together and formed 'Love Heals' to keep her message going," Mack said. "What they do is they send people like myself and Julie, both of us living with AIDS, to go out and put a face on the disease, and spread the message."

Once the students were gathered in their chairs for the assembly, Mack had a ho-holds-barred discussion with them.

Baring his soul, Mack told a harrowing tale of growing up gay and enduring taunts and abuse of schoolmates. Later, he contracted HIV while in a committed relationship, and, unable to cope, found solace in drugs and alcohol.

However, Mack's tale was tinged with equal parts heartbreak and hope. He eventually cleaned himself up, found the right medical treatment, and, despite his HIV turning into full-blown AIDS in 1987, has lived a healthy and productive life.

Mack provided some startling statistics for the collected teens regarding AIDS in this day and age.

"AIDS is now affecting young people more than ever," he said. "The 13-24 year-old age group is the population with the highest rate of infection today, and of that, it's mostly women. It's no longer a gay disease."

Mack's colleague, Julie C., who asked that her last name be withheld, isn't as lucky. She caught HIV from the first man she ever had sexual relations with. She has had a host of physical ailments as a result: both of her kidneys have shut down, requiring dialysis four times a week, among many other maladies. Yet she has lived with the disease for many years, which she credits to the love and support of her husband, family, and friends.

"This is what people with AIDS look like," she said. "We look like everybody else. HIV doesn't discriminate, and the decisions you make now, can affect you a lifetime."

Ames, and   also displayed patches from the AIDS memorial quilt this week. Massapequa High School held a public viewing onWednesday night.

Danielle Benvenisti, 41, brought her 11-year-old son Michael to the viewing. "My son's 6th grade science teacher assigned extra credit to the class if they came," she said.

"It's a good cause and he has to build a square of his own, so we thought we'd get some ideas."

Michael felt mixed emotions after seeing the quilt.

"It's kind of a good and bad feeling," he said. "Good because of what people did to remember their friends,bad because so many people died of AIDS."

Michael's teacher, Brian Mulcahy,  said he wanted his students to experience the quilt.

"This is important for kids to see the effects of AIDS on families," he said. "Each square on here represents one family."

Mulcahy said he's done several weeks of lessons on HIV and AIDS.

"We want them to understand that this is something that they can avoid by making intelligent choices, but this is something they'll live with all their lives," he said.