AIDS Activists Prepare Plea to Clinton for Help : Health: Thousands of people in Southern California sign a giant card to the President-elect to mark World AIDS Day. They call on him to keep his campaign promises to fight the disease.

There were brightly colored children’s handprints, a family snapshot, words of loss and humor, and above all, exhortations to President-elect Bill Clinton to keep his promises.

“We have lost too many lives, too many years to AIDS while the White House has sat and done nothing. You are our hope,” wrote Robert, one of several thousand people in Los Angeles and West Hollywood who signed a giant card to Clinton in observance of World AIDS Day on Tuesday.

Decorated with the pastel outlines of human figures and red AIDS ribbons, the 7-foot by 50-foot folding panel will be shipped to Clinton later this week, a symbol of what AIDS activists hope will be a new era.

“They feel like for once there’s someone who will hear their message,” Al Ballesteros of Being Alive, a Los Angeles AIDS service agency, said of the people who scribbled their thoughts on the huge card that stood on the organization’s shaded patio Tuesday afternoon. Clinton campaigned with vows of accelerated research and funding for AIDS, and these people made it clear they are not going to let him forget it.

“Help!!” shouted one message. “More $ for research,” demanded another. “Bill, please keep your promises.”

Wrote Lee Anthony Jones of Glendale: “I’m tired, Mr. Clinton. I’m tired of the suffering and the pain. I’m tired of hurting and watching my friends die.”

A 34-year-old man who is HIV-positive left a snapshot of himself with his companion and his dog. “This is a picture of my family. I don’t want to lose them and they don’t want to lose me. Best of luck, Dan, Joe and Roxxi.”

Some offered blessings and some wrote in Spanish. The youngest patients of the county AIDS clinic left handprints and footprints next to their names and ages.

And then there was some friendly personal advice for the new President. “Mr. Clinton, keep pants up and dresses down.”

Elsewhere, “Captains Condom” dressed the part and handed out condoms throughout Los Angeles County to promote AIDS prevention as part of the annual World AIDS Day, designated by the World Health Organization.

AIDS Project Los Angeles joined AIDS agencies in other parts of the country in starting a bilingual campaign in Spanish and English to encourage testing for AIDS and early treatment.

And entertainment and business leaders in Los Angeles took part in a national teleconference launching a “Business Responds to AIDS” program sponsored by the federal Centers for Disease Control. The project is designed to promote the establishment of AIDS workplace policies and training in how companies should treat employees with AIDS and HIV.

One public service ad planned by the agency shows a picture of someone patting a man on the back. “This isn’t how you get HIV. It’s how you treat someone who has it,” the ad says.

The federal agency estimates that 1 million Americans are infected with the virus that causes AIDS; globally, at least 9 million people are believed to be infected.