Pastor Leads The Way In HIV, AIDS Testing
Blackwell Chapel AME Zion Church Provides Free ClinicBy Dennis Phillips, dphillips@post-journal.com
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''It's better to know than not to know. A sacrifice was made on the cross. Now it's our turn for sacrifice.''
Rev. Annette Hood
Blackwell Chapel AME Zion Church
Setting up a day for HIV and AIDS testing, and being tested in public is how the Rev. Annette Hood is leading the way in getting knowledge to her community about the deadly disease.
Mrs. Hood and her family volunteered to be tested for HIV and AIDS before Jamestown's Blackwell Chapel AME Zion Church congregation to help educate their community about the disease after her invitation to the members Sunday.
Lori Matson and a case manager, both from AIDS Community Services, attended Sunday's service and handling the HIV and AIDS tests. Ms. Matson in front of the church's congregation did the HIV and AIDS testing on Mrs. Hood, her husband, Larry, and their two daughters while private sessions were held downstairs for the church's congregation.
''It's better to know than not to know,'' Mrs. Hood said. ''A sacrifice was made on the cross. Now it's our turn for sacrifice.''
The service and testing is part of the church's celebration of Black History Month and National Black HIV and AIDS Awareness Day, which was Feb. 7 this year. Mrs. Hood said a conversation with several local youths in late December drove her to conduct the testing after the service.
In 2005, the last year for which such statistics are available, the Center for Disease Control and Prevention stated that blacks accounted for almost half of the 37,300 new HIV or AIDS diagnoses in the United States in the 33 states with long-term, confidential reporting. Of the estimated 18,450 people under the age of 25 whose diagnosis of HIV or AIDS was made between 2000 and 2004, 61 percent were black.
''You need to know young people, you are valuable to God. Bad choices can send you to an early grave,'' Mrs. Hood said during the invitation. ''Why live a concentrated life like God is watching? It's because God is watching.''
Ms. Matson said before Mrs. Hood's test that the process used to take weeks while blood work was done. Now the process takes about 10 minutes with a testing mechanism that is similar to a home pregnancy test. She said when the HIV and AIDS epidemic first hit in the early 1980s, people didn't know much about the disease or how to treat it, which isn't the case anymore.
''Knowledge is power ... we now know how to protect ourselves,'' she said.
The congregation also held a special memorial service outside the church where members released a red balloon if they knew anyone who has died of AIDS.
