By CHARLY MARKWART
Princeton Times
December 04, 2008 08:01 pm
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GREEN VALLEY — As activists around the world worked to raise awareness of the global AIDS epidemic this week, Community Connections’ own Greg Puckett issued a challenge right here in Mercer County regarding the local community’s own struggle with the disease.
“We must make sure that we make a difference with this,” said CCI’s executive director. “We have to come together to the table and really get more people actively involved. It takes everyone; it takes the business community, the youth, and the parents. The school system has to be more actively involved. We have to do better; we have to get out in our community and do much more.”
At the organization’s World AIDS Day press conference at the Mercer County Health Department, CCI employees and collaborators discussed what they plan to do with a $75,000 grant received this year from the Substance Abuse & Mental Health Services Administration’s Center for Substance Abuse Prevention. Awarded in October, the grant’s purpose is to directly address the issues of AIDS and substance abuse.
“We want to use this money to raise awareness about AIDS and HIV in this area,” said CCI’s Chris Nichols, coordinator of the HIV/AIDS and Substance Abuse Prevention grant. “We want to inform the public about positive ways toward prevention, and we want people to know that you can get tested, and it’s free and confidential.”
This is the fourth consecutive year that CCI has obtained the HIV/AIDS and substance abuse grant, but this year’s award is much larger than that of years past. Puckett says that extra money will be used to assist community activists who are leading the fight against AIDS and substance abuse in Mercer County.
“This is $75,000 that we will be able to give right back to the community we serve,” he said. “We are going to be doing more awareness activities, and I think it’s going to be very helpful. This is money that we have to work specifically on the HIV/AIDS problem in our community.”
That problem, Puckett noted, has reached epidemic level in Mercer County within the past two years, even as national HIV/AIDS rates have seen a decrease. According to CCI statistics, the disease is especially prevalent in the county’s minority population, which is one of the largest in the state. Seven percent of West Virginia’s African American residents live in Mercer County, and in Bluefield, 25 percent of residents are African American, the largest percentage in the state. The six county region that includes Mercer County has the highest minority HIV/AIDS rate in the state.
“This problem is really predominant within our African American population,” said Puckett. “When we at CCI first started to address this a few years ago, we saw some barriers that stood in front of us that were not racial barriers, but social barriers. Because all of our employees at that time were white, it was hard to communicate in some ways. But, when we started really focusing on the problem at hand and coming together, it solved itself. We knew that we could communicate effectively because that’s what this organization does; we come together to face community issues like this.”
CCI has come together with several of the area’s faith-based organizations in its work toward solving the county’s HIV/AIDS problem and the sometimes related issue of substance abuse. As it has done in past years, CCI will use part of this year’s grant to award 10 mini-grants to local churches, whose leaders are assigned to use the money to conduct activities that endorse prevention within their own congregations.
“At least one third of this money goes back to area churches,” said Nichols. “We train them, and they go out and do much more than we could do by ourselves. It’s working really well so far; these churches have a real passion to reach out to the community and attack this singular problem as a focus.”
Nichols says that CCI employees have chosen to collaborate with faith-based organizations because of evidence that shows a clear-cut relationship between church attendance and abstinence from drugs and other harmful activities.
“We have information that shows us that 91 percent of people who attend church regularly are found later on to not abuse drugs or alcohol,” he explained. “There is a connection between substance abuse and HIV, and that’s why we’re collaborating with faith-based organizations to address this issue.”
One of last year’s recipients of CCI’s HIV/AIDS and substance abuse mini-grants was the Harvest Outreach Center, in Princeton. The center’s Rev. Barry Early said Monday that the money has helped his organization to address a problem that he has seen far too much of throughout his career.
“I have had much experience with AIDS victims, especially those in the last stages of HIV and AIDS, when I have visited hospitals and then eventually performed their funerals,” he said. “We’ve got to get the message out to people that early diagnosis and treatment of this disease will make a difference. By being able to work with Community Connections, we have been able to do a better job because, as the saying goes, money talks.”
Last year, the Harvest Outreach Center hosted a youth skate night where 80-100 area children were taught about the prevention of HIV/AIDS and substance abuse. The center received another CCI mini-grant this year, which Early says will be used to do even more to attack the two dangerously prevalent county problems.
“We are going to do another skate night, which we hope is even bigger than last year’s,” he said. “And, we are planning at least three major events, including community picnics, a basketball game and a concert. At all of those events, we will be passing out brochures and other prevention literature to kids. One of the great things about working with the coalition is that we all realize we can do more together.”
In addition to encouraging mini-grant recipients to host prevention activities within their communities, CCI employees plan to use this year’s grant money to conduct several community HIV/AIDS testing days in 2009.
“Our specific goal is to test 150 people in 2009,” said Nichols. “We are going to have two staff members, myself included, who are specifically trained to do AIDS testing. Also, people can come to the Mercer County Health Department for testing. All of those tests are free and the information is confidential.”
Puckett is especially optimistic about plans to take that testing directly to what he calls the county’s most at-risk areas, including downtown Bluefield and High Street and Mercer Street in Princeton.
“Mercer Street is a huge problem because of the prostitution issues and the drug issues that are very prevalent there,” he said. “I think that is a part of the community that has fallen, and we are very excited about that opportunity to set us shop right on Mercer Street and conduct trained testing there.”
Melody Rickman, of the Mercer County Health Department, said Monday that testing is especially important in this era when an HIV diagnosis is not quite as grave as it was just a few years ago.
“This infection used to be considered a death sentence, but now if people are diagnosed early and treated, this is a manageable disease that people are living longer with and showing less noticeable symptoms of,” she said. “A lot of people don’t want to be tested because they just don’t want to know, but if you think you’ve been exposed, you should be tested. Worrying and waiting is only making the situation worse. We try to be a resource where people can just walk in off the street and be tested confidentially, and we always offer counseling, as well.”
While many of CCI’s testing dates aren’t scheduled until next spring, Puckett noted that it was important for the organization address the HIV/AIDS issue on World AIDS Day, which serves as the official kickoff to HIV Awareness Month.
“We wanted to use today to really start getting the word out,” he said. “This is a very, very important day, and we are using it to bring that worldwide level down to our community.”
Those worldwide statistics show that 40 million people are infected with HIV. Since it was first identified, 25 million people have died of AIDS, and the disease continues to kill more than 3 million people each year. Still, while more and more people are becoming aware of the worldwide epidemic, Early says that CCI employees and their collaborators have their work cut out for them in continuing to raise awareness in Mercer County.
“People around us are hid; they say AIDS is a city disease; it’s not here,” he said. “There is still much to be done. There is much we need to do.”
— Contact CharLy Markwart at cmarkwart@ptonline.net.
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