Maria Regina High School names new president
Anna Parra named president of Maria Regina
High School.
Photo courtesy of Maria Regina High School
BRONX TIMES REPORTER, J BTR ULY 26-AUGUST 1, 2019 53
The Board of Trustees is announces
Maria Regina High School’s next president,
Anna Parra. Beginning her term
on Monday, July 8, Parra is the school’s
second pesident, succeeding Valerie
Reidy who retired on Sunday, June 30.
Parra brings a wealth of experience to
Maria Regina in the areas of fundraising,
administration, and leadership. Prior to
her appointment, Parra served as president
of Aquinas High School, where she
worked closely with administrators, faculty
and staff, parents, and alumnae to
bring the school to new levels of success,
including a 44% increase in freshmen
enrollment and a 20% growth in
fundraising revenue.
As president of Aquinas since 2017,
Parra was instrumental in leading a
branding campaign which directly impacted
the increase in enrollment. She
led a lean development operation in
surpassing its prior year goals, which
helped to establish sponsorships for student
athletes and a fi nancial literacy program
as part of the accounting class.
She has had a tremendous impact
on the student experience, forging new
partnerships with organizations such as
the Bronx County Courthouse and Wells
Fargo for student internship and mentoring
opportunities.
Parra also helped to bolster the
school community by introducing new
and exciting ways for alumnae and families
to stay connected with the school,
including launching a Parents Advisory
Council, implementing monthly e-News
and an Alumnae Spotlight, and introducing
special events such as a Mother-
Daughter Luncheon and the Sports Dinner.
Prior to her role at Aquinas, Parra
spent 15 years at Academy of Mount St.
Ursula in Bronx, NY, fi rst as Director of
Development before being promoted to
Executive Director of Development. In
this capacity, Parra led a development
team responsible for raising a total of
more than $11 million in 6 annual appeals,
as well as a successful $3 million
capital campaign. Prior to that, she held
roles of increasing responsibility at the
Cardinal’s Appeal Offi ce of the Archdiocese
of New York from 1994-2002.
Refl ecting her deep commitment to
education, Parra recently served as an
adjunct professor of nonprofi t fundraising
and communications at The College
of New Rochelle. Parra consistently
seeks professional development
opportunities, earning certifi cates from
the Management Seminar for Leaders of
Catholic Schools, Archdiocesan Catholic
School Development Seminar, and
various Association of Fundraising Professionals
(AFP) and Women in Development
conferences.
Parra holds a Bachelor’s degree in fi -
nance/international business from Fordham
University in Bronx, NY, and a Master’s
degree in communication studies
and advanced certifi cate in communication
management and media from The
College of New Rochelle in New Rochelle,
NY.
* * *
A positive blood test was usually a
death sentence.
From the early 1980s, when it was
fi rst identifi ed, through the mid-1990s,
the prognosis was dire: Almost uniformly,
it was fatal. And, very likely, the
end was not kind.
Hospitals in New York City were overwhelmed.
Doctors, nurses and funeral
homes often kept their distance for fear
of contagion. Government resources to
fund research in search of better treatments
were grossly inadequate.
This is the beginning of a new episode
of SBH Bronx Health Talk, a podcast
produced by SBH Health System,
on the early years of the HIV/AIDS epidemic
through today – a time when HIV/
AIDS has become a chronic and often
manageable disease. Patients who are
compliant with their meds can now expect
to live long and essentially normal
lives.
The episode features an excerpt from
a roundtable discussion taken with fi ve
infectious disease specialists at SBH
Health System, all young physicians at
the onset of the crisis, as well as an interview
with SBH’s Director of HIV, who
has seen the progression in treatment
over the last three decades.
Dr. Ed Telzak, chair of the Department
of Medicine at SBH and an infectious
disease specialist, remembers
when he was a young attending physician
at a major Manhattan cancer center
with a very large HIV population. At fi rst,
the clinical presentation of patients with
this new disease left even experienced
infectious disease doctors feeling bewildered
and isolated.
The disease was initially focused
around the 4H’s: homosexuals, Haitians,
hemophiliacs, and heroin. That
would soon change.
Recent research shows that the AIDS
virus fi rst landed in America a decade
earlier, around 1971, with the time between
infection and onset of symptoms
taking, on average, about 10 years.
Contrary to the once accepted premise
that an Air Canada male attendant was
“patient zero,” spreading the disease
through sexual partners along his route,
it is now believed to have started in the
city of Kinshasa in the Congo as far back
as the 1920s.
According to the journal Science, the
virus then spread as the result of a roaring
sex trade, rapid population growth
and unsterilized needles, by rail and
river around the world after the Congo
gained its independence in 1960.
During the 1980s, AIDS patients in
the U.S. typically sought treatment in the
later stages of the disease. Their reasons
were part stigma and part denial –
after all, there was no rush to begin treatment.
Once a patient was diagnosed as
HIV positive, little could be done.
The drug AZT, which received FDA
approval in 1987, gave patients and providers
hope, but in retrospect, Dr. Telzak
calls it no better than a “C minus drug.”
There were increasing concerns during
and after the deaths of these patients,
as the fear of transmission grew.
In some cases, healthcare professionals
didn’t want to take care of them. Surgeons
didn’t want to operate on them.
Nurses didn’t want to enter their rooms.
Funeral homes didn’t want to bury them.
There became more clarity within the
medical community when The New England
Journal of Medicine published on
June 7th, 1981 a report from a Los Angeles
physician on his treatment of fi ve gay
men at UCLA Medical Center who had
come down with Pneumocystis carinii
pneumonia. A month later, on July 3rd,
The New York Times ran its fi rst article
on the subject with the headline “Rare
Cancer Seen in 41 Homosexuals.”
It would take until 1996, however, before
HIV/AIDS patients had hope. This
came with the discovery of antiretroviral
drugs, called protease inhibitors. Doctors,
for the fi rst time, were able to treat
the underlying cause of their patients’
opportunistic infections. Still, it is estimated
that 100,000 New Yorkers have
died of the disease.
Today, Dr. Judy Berger, director of
the division of infectious diseases, can
tell a patient recently diagnosed as HIV
that “you are going to live a long and normal
life,” and to wish a happy birthday to
a patient who just turned 80.
More on this and other episodes of
SBH Bronx Health Talk can be heard
on Spotify, Apple iTunes, Google Play
and Podbean, as well as by visiting sbhbronxhealthtalk.
org.
* * *
Do you need help getting to and from
your medical appointments? Transportation
services are available to seniors
Monday through Friday, 8 a.m. to 4 p.m.,
in community districts 9, 10, 11 and 12.
The program provides door-to-door service
for all medical appointments. Their
drivers are courteous and professional;
and their vehicles are clean and handicap
accessible, including wheelchair
lifts.
For further information, contact Mildred
Cardona, program director of the
R.A.I.N. Transportation Program, at
(718) 882-8513.
* * *
Stop by the PSS City Island Center,
located at 116 City Island Avenue,
Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 3
p.m. Experience their exercise classes
from gentle yoga stretch, balance class,
arthritis workshop and tai chi as well as
the fi t for life and cardio fi t. They also offer
acrylic painting, gardening exchange
club, health presentations, singing group
and parties.
Lunch is served from noon to 1 p.m.,
suggested donation $2. The center participants
go on shopping trips every day;
i.e. Shop Rite, Dollar Tree, Target, Kmart
,as well as theatre excursions, boat trips,
special luncheons and more. It’s free to
become a member but you must be 60
years or above. For more information
contact Patty at (718) 885-0727 or email
pattis@pssusa.org for their monthly calendar.
* * *
The Van Cortlandt Jewish Center,
3880 Sedgwick Avenue, is having a
Summer Blood Drive on Sunday, August
4, from 9:30 a.m. to 2 p.m. in the game
room. It is being run by the New York
Blood Center.
The summer is always a time when
blood banks are low on supplies. You
can help by donating. Everyone that gets
screened gets a $10 Dunkin’ gift card
and high school students, 16 to 19 are
eligible for an additional $15 gift card.
To sign up, call Stu at (646) 240-
1279. You can also sign up through
the form accessible via the VCJC website
at https://vcjewishcenter.org/vcjcblood
drive-august-4/ (https://donate.
nybc.org/donor/schedules/drive_schedule/
271054). Sign-ups are preferred, but
walk-ins are always welcome.
Donor requirements: bdonor card or
ID with photo; drink fl uids before donating;
must be at least 16 years old to donate
and between 16 and 18 you must
have a parental permission on NYBC
form; donors over 76 years of age need a
doctor’s note, unless NYBC has a previous
note and your health status has not
changed; you cannot have had a new
tattoo in the past 12 months, unless the
tattoo was done in New Jersey; and the
minimum weight is 110 pounds.
* * *
NYC Health + Hospitals’ Arts in
Medicine program announced that it
has selected nine artists to lead the
community-based mural projects at
eight hospitals across New York City.
The artists, chosen from more than 100
applications, will engage patients, staff,
and local community residents to create
an integrated internal or external
mural at NYC Health + Hospitals facilities.
Each collaboration will occur between
Thursday, August 1 and Tuesday,
December 31. The collaborative muralmaking
process is a tool to encourage
creativity, build trust and engagement
between the hospitals and their communities,
reduce stigma, and foster pride in
the hospitals through community-building
activities. The project is a fl agship
component of NYC Health + Hospitals’
arts-based initiatives, made possible
through the Laurie M. Tisch Illumination
Fund and the Mayor’s Fund to Advance
New York City.
The artists and their assigned NYC
Health + Hospitals facilities are: Patricia
Cazorla & Nancy Saleme, NYC Health
+ Hospitals/Bellevue; Peach Tao, NYC
Health + Hospitals/McKinney; Yvonne
Shortt, NYC Health + Hospitals/Queens;
Carla Torres, NYC Health + Hospitals/
North Central Bronx; Oscar Lett, NYC
Health + Hospitals/Kings County; Kelie
Bowman, NYC Health + Hospitals/Coney
Island; Pricilla de Carvalho, NYC
Health + Hospitals/Metropolitan; and
Sophia Chizuco, NYC Health + Hospitals/
Carter.
* * *
The Bronx Council on the Arts
launched the third volume of our ongoing
Bronx Memoir Project Anthology Series
on Friday, June 21. Available for purchase
at Amazon.com, the latest volume
is part of our independently-published
anthology series marking the culmination
of our year-long Bronx Memoir Project
workshops. Forty-three workshop
participants refl ecting The Bronx’s diverse
ethnic and cultural backgrounds
contributed stories for this year’s publication.
The Bronx Memoir Project has become
synonymous with BCA, offering
free, professionally-led memoir writing
workshops across The Bronx for professional
and avocational writers of all ages
and cultural backgrounds. The workshops
attest to BCA’s commitment to
providing resources to our community,
while highlighting and preserving local
narratives and stories.
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