Miami Herald - Thursday, December 28, 1995
Aleisia Gibson, Herald Staff Writer

But a trip to the American College Health Association meeting in New Orleans in the spring of 1990 motivated Parke to organize an HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention Program at Broward Community College North Campus, where she's a professor.

"After attending the conference, I felt someone really needed to do something," Parke said. "I felt that there was a need and I took up the challenge."

Parke, 54, of Pompano Beach was given special recognition at the World AIDS Day CARE Awards banquet held Dec. 1 at the Crowne Sterling Suites in Fort Lauderdale.

"Before leaving the conference, I had to write out a plan of action," she said. When she returned, she immediately began plans to institute an HIV/AIDS program at BCC.

It started as a pilot program on BCC's North Campus.

"The basis of the program is to get the students involved in teaching other students about AIDS prevention," Parke said. She put an advertisement in the school newspaper for peer counselors and posted fliers on campus bulletin boards.

To educate herself about the virus, she read books and attended local and national workshops about HIV and AIDS.

"I started training for the program in the summer of 1990," Parke said. "Throughout that whole next year, I did as much reading as I could."

The program, which started small, has since expanded to the three BCC campuses and has reached 15,000 students. Parke, who is director of the program, teaches student counselors to interact with their audiences.

Once the counselors are trained, they go into classrooms to lead discussions about HIV and AIDS, protection against the disease, and how to talk to about abstinence, Parke said.

The counselors sometimes work from five to 10 hours a week. "There have been times when it becomes very stressful, but it's really important that the word gets out to students," Parke said. "We can save lives through this."

The program, funded by the Broward Community Foundation, hosts Condom Month in February, runs a column in the school newspaper and invites lecturers to speak to students.

Parke has worked as a health and physical education professor at BCC for 23 years. Before working there, she taught health and physical education in New York and Connecticut.

"She is the primary reason the local chapter of Red Cross has an HIV/AIDS program," said Danielle Brawn, spokeswoman for the Fort Lauderdale chapter of the Red Cross, where Parke also trains volunteers to work for the organization's HIV/AIDS Education Program. "There is nothing she won't do. She's always there to pick up the slack."

Parke has befriended several AIDS patients, some of whom have died. But she said she wouldn't trade her experience working with the program.

"They had developed very positive attitudes despite what they were going through," Parke said. "I've met some wonderful people though this cause."

CAPTION: PHOTO Janet Parke director of HIV/AIDS Awareness and Prevention Program (a)
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