Dr. John Chittick '66, Executive Director of the TeenAIDS-PeerCorps, was presented with the Heritage Award at a campus meeting on October 9, 2001. He has devoted his life to educating teens about the AIDS epidemic. Chittick's message to teens is simple yet heartfelt, "If you love a friend you must learn the facts and then warn your friend. If you are too shy (to talk about how high risk behaviors lead to HIV), your friend might die." Known to teens as Dr. John, his plan of attack has been to head directly to the streets to find young volunteers to assist him with his educational mission. He has successfully enjoined youth of vastly different cultures to come together and help their peers fight the spread of youth AIDS. In 2001, his humanitarian mission to 40 countries resulted in the training of 70,000 teen volunteers. Dr. John continues to walk on five continents to train teens about HIV/AIDS peer teaching.

Following his graduation from Deerfield, John undertook the first of his international experiences as an exchange student in an alpine village in Austria. Later, a solo two-year journey to the South Pacific, where he lived with indigenous islanders, opened his eyes to how native peoples and their centuries-old traditions survive in a rapidly changing world. Returning to the US inspired with a vision to make a difference, he entered M.I.T. seeking a Master of Visual Science degree and found that technological resources could assist in educating "Hard to reach" youth.

In the mid-80's he started an art publishing company, Pate Poste, which became the largest specialty postcard publisher in New England and was known for its donations of printing and design services to benefit AIDS causes. After realizing how serious the AIDS pandemic had become, he sold his company and entered Harvard. His thesis, Teens and AIDS; The Third Wave, was first presented at the 1994 International AIDS Conference in Japan, and since then he has spoken at conferences all over the world and consulted on youth HIV vulnerability for United Nations AIDS, the UN's umbrella organization.

As published in the January 2002 issue of Deerfield Today, a newsletter for alumni of Deerfield Academy