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COVID Vaccine Outreach Efforts Underway

Mar. 28, 2021 3:45p

(WGTD)---COVID vaccinators aren't necessarily waiting for people to find them. They're taking a portion of their vaccine allocations and hitting the road. 

Over the weekend, over two dozen people received first doses at the HALO homeless shelter in Racine, courtesy of Ascension All Saints Hospital. 

Last Tuesday at the Grace Welcome Center at Grace Lutheran Church in Kenosha, about 200 people received shots in a clinic offered by Kenosha Public Health. A similar clinic was held at the Shalom Center. 

Welcome Center manager Leif Peterson told WGTD News in an email that some of the inoculated found out about the clinic through flyers that had been distributed in the uptown area. Others found out by word-of-mouth, while some people stumbled upon the opportunity through participation in the church's food pantry. 

Another clinic will be held at the Welcome Center again on Tuesday. No appointments or ID's are required, and it's first come, first served, until the vaccine supply runs out. 

While the existence of mass vaccination clinics in Kenosha and Racine have been well-publicized, not everyone is online or reads newspapers or listens to the radio. 

Language can also be a barrier, which is why Racine County Board Supervisor Fabi Maldonado made his comments in Spanish at a vaccination event last week. Maldonado and other leaders of the Black and Latinx communities in Racine held a press event at the Dr. Martin Luther King Community Center to encourage people to get vaccinated. 

Mass vaccination clinics are in operation again this week in empty space at Regency Mall in Racine and in the former Shopko building in Kenosha on 52nd St. Appointments are required for these clinics. 

Racine's municipal bus service is offering free rides to the Regency Mall clinic. Kenosha's bus service will follow suit with rides to the Shopko clinic beginning Tuesday. That offer requires takers to show their appointment registrations to the bus driver.

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