December 3, 2009
AIDS Awareness Day Celebration honors nurse Sheri Clark
Kate Haake/Valley Journal
Public health nurse Sheri Clark embraces SKC Prevention Program Director Niki Graham, right, at The AIDS Awareness Celebration. Graham took the opportunity to honor Clark for her work in HIV/AIDS education and prevention.
By Kate Haake
Valley Journal
PABLO — Salish and Kootenai College Prevention Program celebrated AIDS Awareness Day with a surprise honoring of Lake County Public Health Department nurse Sheri Clark.
Clark, who has worked in nursing for 30 years, was personally touched by the devastation of HIV/AIDS when her best friend died from AIDS in Charlo in 1991. After the loss, she devoted her nursing career to caretaking for people with HIV/AIDS.
“She has helped us so much,” SKC Prevention Program Director Niki Graham said. “She is the one people will call when they have a HIV/AIDS case because she is so compassionate.”
Clark works as a nurse for the Lake County Family Planning Clinic and the Public Health Home Visiting Program, which supports and educates at-risk pre-natal and post-partum mothers. Clark was honored publicly at the celebration and was presented a blanket and a plaque for her dedication and service.
“(Let’s) make every day AIDS Awareness Day,” Clark said tearfully.
According to the SKC Prevention Program, there are nine HIV/AIDS cases in Lake County, and for Clark, these cases are near to her heart.
“She is just an amazing person,” Lake County Health Services Director Emily Colomeda said. “To me she epitomizes what a public health nurse should be.”
Colomeda, who is Clark’s boss, tricked Clark into writing a summary of her work in HIV/AIDS education, stating that the department needed the information for a grant they were writing.
Clark stated in the summary that after the death of her best friend in 1991, she began working with the Lake County Health Department in 1993. At the department she was educated about AIDS and was trained in counseling and testing for the disease. Among other accomplishments, she was the co-founder of the Mission Valley AIDS Council in 1995 and has conducted educational presentations in all the high schools in Lake County, as well as Polson Middle School. She does a yearly service for Job Corps staff members on HIV and Hepatitis C. She also gives presentations at St. Luke Community Healthcare Nursing Home.
“I enjoy work involving HIV/AIDS while working with individuals in family planning and doing risk assessments,” Clark said. “During the everyday work of testing and counseling, I hope that I can help the individual make a plan that will keep them from going through this disease.”
According to the National Association of People with AIDS, there are over one million people in the United States who are living with HIV and over 33 million people living with HIV world wide.
“It’s important for people to know that it can happen to you or someone else,” Colomeda said.
For free testing and/or information about HIV/AIDS contact the SKC Prevention Program at 275-4926.
Testing is available at the John Peter Paul Building at SKC in Pablo. |
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