Out In The Mountains : News - Johnson Leaves AIDS Project of Southern VT

       BRATTLEBORO – It's been six years since Glenn Johnson arrived in Vermont to work as an HIV prevention specialist at the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont. It's time, he says, for him to take a break.
       It's not, he says, because funding priorities for prevention have changed his job. In fact, "Funding priorities from the CDC align well with my work," he says, empowering members of the community through activities and weaving HIV prevention messages into them.        "It isn't without its frustrations, especially under the Bush administration. It has not made the job any easier." Despite that, the Southern Vermont AIDS Project's prevention funding was doubled last year by the Vermont Department of Health.
       He is leaving, he insists, because he needs to "rest and recharge" before taking on some other activist challenge.
       Sue Bell, the director of the AIDS Project of Southern Vermont, agrees that his successor will have big shoes to fill. "We are grateful to Glenn; he has brought us to a wonderful spot with his leadership in prevention, especially in the Empowerment Project. Glenn connected us to the national Empowerment model, which has proven successful in many different places. That connection has broadened our vision and made us more effective."
        The agency is casting a wide net and had already received a resume from "someone who is temporarily in Romania," Bell said. While Bell hopes to hire someone before Johnson leaves, there will be continuity in the program through the activities of Alex Potter, who began working with the newsletter and social activities for the agency in April.
       And that is the highlight, Johnson says, of his time at APSV, the success his program had in the last round of CDC funding administered by the Department of Health. "I will miss the people, the AIDS activists, it's an amazing community."
       The hardest part of the last six years has been "dealing with gay oppression, from the overt sources like the Bush administration to the unchallenged assumptions of people who would think of themselves as liberals, to the internalized gay oppression of our own community." He adds, Vermont has been a great place to learn how to be a gay activist.
       Johnson, who attended Vassar College and graduated in 1994 with a B.A. in Creative Writing and Social Activism from UMass-Amherst, would be quite a catch for any organization: he says he loves to write grants. But he's in no hurry to take on another cause right away. After October 6, he will be "resting and recharging my batteries" at home in Greenfield, Massachusetts.
       Oh, and did we mention that he's single?