Here’s how one of our member CEO’s Kim Galban-Countryman of Lighthouse of the Big Bend (LBB), worked with her county’s officials to ensure the process for vaccine distribution is accessible: “Our local association of human service organizations hosted a Zoom meeting with the Health Director in charge of vaccinations for one of our counites. On the call, she reviewed the current process for getting the vaccine which involves being in a vehicle and moving from station to station. Our local paratransit services cannot accommodate this type of service – they are strickly a pick up and drop off service. I emailed her, along with two of our state legislators and a member of our Transit Advisory Council to explain that the current vaccination process creates a major barrier for any citizen with mobility issues, including 200 of my senior clients.
I proposed two solutions. The first was to create satellite vaccination sites at organizations like mine and have our staff serve as sighted guides for our clients to safely get them off the bus, help them with paperwork, get them through the various stations until they receive the vaccine, and get them back on their bus. My second suggestion was to vaccinate the employees I have listed on my auto insurance policy so we can pick up clients and bring them to the vaccination site ourselves…The member of the Transit Advisory Council immediately looped in the director of StarMetro and within two weeks the City of Tallahassee announced that the paratransit guidelines were being changed and paratransit clients would now be able to use the service to ride through the drive-through vaccination clinic.” Contact Kim Galban Countryman at kgalban@seeingindependence.org