For the last six months, the CanVaxx team has been going around the community, participating in local events, and coming up with new ways to spread factual information about COVID-19, testing, and the vaccines. What began as only canvassing neighborhoods and going from home to home to spread this information and gain feedback about the virus and vaccines, has since become something so much more complex and intricate.
Each team member figured out new and unique ways to contribute and help the community while working on this project:
- Providing rides for people to testing centers or vaccine clinics
- Going to local businesses to provide information and advice
- Offering free testing to anyone interested using their testing kits
- Planning events for testing and vaccines
- Providing information about mobile vaccine clinics and appointments
- Attending local events to spread information and provide testing opportunities
- And so much more!
Brainstorming
Throughout this project, the team has worked on coming up with different ways to reach the community to provide them with the necessary information and resources. The first few months of the CanVaxx project was dedicated to canvassing neighborhoods, going door-to-door to provide information and gain feedback from the community. Though they continue to do canvassing and pass out flyers so that they can reach the entire community with information and education, the past few months of the project have become more unique for each team member as they figured out ways to reach people in our community differently. They have been going to popular, familiar, and/or trusted places in the community such as small businesses, restaurants, barbershops, bus stops, etc. to provide information and gain insight on people’s thoughts and feelings. From yard signs and posters to attending local events and festivals, the team has thought of a wide range of ways to encourage the WyCo community to get tested and vaccinated.
Utilizing
They have used the feedback and information collected from the community to figure out how to better provide the knowledge and resources they have. The team discovered that many people in the community are still worried about being tracked by the government through the vaccine. This is a myth that they have worked hard to dispel and show people that it isn’t true through education. They have also found out that some people lack trust in the local health department, because they believe it didn’t do enough for the community in the beginning of the pandemic to warrant further trust and understanding. However, CanVaxx is a project put together by the local health department to help with connecting to weak points in the community. The Unified Government Public Health Department and CHC have put in a lot of work to help WyCo through these troubling times and CanVaxx is just one example of that.
Building Trust
This team has worked diligently to gain the trust of people in our community. Local businesses have been able to trust them since every team member is from the community and can directly relate to the struggles everyone is facing from the pandemic. They have gained the trust from a lot of people in the community as well by showing understanding and kindness in their work. The CanVaxx team doesn’t try to pressure people, but they have tried to at least help them understand the severity of the pandemic, the importance of the vaccines, and the opportunity to get tested. They want to see what is holding people back from getting the vaccine to understand hesitancies in the community and at least provide them with accurate information and available resources.
The CanVaxx project was originally set to finish in September but was extended through January of 2022 by the UGPHD. The efforts and contributions the project has made for the community so far is extremely appreciated and valuable, and we can’t wait to see how much more they can create an impact for WyCo. They have done amazing things working to help our community beat COVID-19 and become healthy. Their ideas have been great, and the work they’ve done has shown great progress in the community so far including higher testing rates and higher vaccination rates, even in areas that had some of the lowest rates earlier in 2021.