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Facility to care for HIV, AIDS patients

Myrtle Beach (SC) Sun News
By Johanna Wilson The SUN NEWS
04.29.01

Some call Leslie Knox an angel.

Lynn Woods is one of them.

The certified nursing assistant who lives in Myrtle Beach has seen the bridges her friend has crossed to help those in need.

Now, Woods is proud that Knox has taken on an endeavor others have refused - caring for those with HIV and AIDS.

Job's House at 2024 Winyah St. in Georgetown opened Saturday. Knox started the home so men with the deadly disease would have a place to call home.

Woods will be one of her volunteers because she likes Knox and believes in her task.

"There are angels who walk here on Earth, and she is one of them," said Woods, 36, who met Knox through work about five years ago.

Knox, 34, a certified nursing assistant who lives in Litchfield Beach, said patients will be charged $225 a month to live at Job's House.

The patients will receive three meals daily and care from Knox and volunteers. The money from patients and private donations will go for operating expenses, she said. If patients are unable to pay, they will still have a home.

"I will not turn anybody away," Knox said.

"Leslie has taken people into her home who had HIV and AIDS," Woods said. "Her heart is so big for people. She just wants to help everybody."

Knox said Job's House will initially serve only males, but in the future she plans to have Job's House II for women and children. Job's House III will be a medical facility.

"Females have children and other relatives who are caring for them," Knox said. "But the men are homeless, coming out of prison or other dire situations."

Knox began thinking about a home for HIV and AIDS patients in 1995.

During that time, she was working with a nursing agency and noticed that she was the only employee of about 50 who would care for patients with HIV and AIDS.

"I think people were uneducated," Knox said. "A lot of people think it is airborne. Or they think they can get AIDS if they touch a person."

When three of her patients died, she was even more determined to create a loving space for them.

"People should not discriminate against HIV and AIDS patients because you never know when the disease might touch the lives of somebody they love," said Knox, a member of Life Outreach International Ministries in Myrtle Beach.

"And people who live with HIV and AIDS need to know they are loved, too. They are human."

Geoffrey Garvey, who works with the AIDS ministry at St. Michael's Catholic Churchin Garden City Beach, said Job's House is needed.

"Job's House will give them a community," Garvey said. "Here are people who have been rejected by their parents, brothers, sisters and so forth. Job's House will allow them to be around who understand their problems."

In March, CARETEAM Inc., an HIV and AIDS support group that serves Horry, Georgetown and Williamsburg counties, had nearly 400 patients enrolled.

More than 300 of those clients were men.

Georgetown had 146 AIDS cases, Horry had 382, and Williamsburg had 126, based on cumulative totals from Jan. 1, 1981 to June 30, 2000, according to the South Carolina Department of Health and Environmental Control.

Brunswick County had a cumulative total of 57 AIDS cases, from 1983 to 2000, according to theBrunswick County Health Department.

"AIDS should be a conversation at every breakfast table, every church, every school," said Pernessa C. Seele, an S.C. native who founded an AIDS organization called The Balm in Gilead Inc., headquartered in New York. "We have a crises. Unless we start acting like our house is on fire, the house will burn down."

For more information, call Job's House at 545-8467.

JOHANNA D. WILSON can be reached at 444-1768, 1-800-568-1800, Ext. 768, or at jwilson&

All content (c) 2001 The Sun News Do not republish or frame without permission.

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