Volunteer at the Alamodome and get the COVID shot
Everyone will qualify for jabs starting Monday
With Texas opening coronavirus vaccine eligibility to every adult on Monday, scoring an appointment to get one of the scarce shots in the near future could get even more competitive.
But there’s another way to secure a spot in line and feel good about it: Anyone who volunteers for a 6.5-hour shift at the city’s mass vaccination site at the Alamodome gets rewarded with the coveted vaccine.
“We’ve heard from quite a few people that this was the easiest way for them to get in,” said Evelyn Garza, Metro Health’s volunteer coordinator. “And once they’re here, they’re like, ‘Hey, I had a great time, I want to come back.’ ”
As tens of thousands of people have spent the last several months frantically refreshing websites for scant slots that disappear within minutes, volunteer opportunities have offered people the chance to get the jab without that hassle — and an ethical way for younger and healthy people to skip ahead in the vaccine line. Over the last few months, Garza estimates that at least a couple thousand people have been vaccinated after volunteering at the Alamodome.
The San Antonio Metropolitan Health District is among the health departments and medical providers across the country that have looked to hundreds of volunteers to ramp up the nation’s most ambitious immunization campaign in recent history. Wellmed, which runs a couple of other mass vaccine clinics in San Antonio, also is offering volunteers a vaccine in exchange for service — sometimes even as soon as their first shift.
“The demand is still there for
the vaccine, but the number of appointments are not,” Garza said. “Here, it's a little bit easier to get an appointment.”
But those providers are now running into a problem: As Texas prepares to open up eligibility to everyone 16 and older, Garza worries that fewer people will sign up to volunteer. The mass site at the Alamodome needs up to 90 volunteers to run each shift — and there are two shifts per day.
The city used to require people to work two shifts — a total of about 13 hours — to get a shot but has now cut the requirement in half in hopes of attracting more helping hands, Garza said. Volunteers are typically able to schedule an appointment to receive their first dose within a couple days of their shift and will automatically be signed up for the second dose a few weeks later.
“We do have quite a few people who returned as volunteers, and we love our
return volunteers,” Garza said. “We have some of our medical volunteers on their 18th shift.”
Much of the city's success in drawing volunteers has come by word-ofmouth.
Ana Martinez, a 37-yearold real estate agent, is one of the city's young and healthy residents who'd been told by a friend about the opportunity to give back — and get protected from the coronavirus.
She began to look in February for open shifts to volunteer at a time when only health care workers, nursing home residents, people with underlying health conditions and those 65 and
over were eligible to get vaccinated in Texas.
“I'm in and out of houses all the time — I am showing homes, and especially in this market, it's insane,” Martinez said. “There was a huge fear factor.”
Eventually, Martinez snagged a shift in early March. She's fluent in Spanish and was able to serve as one of 20 or so translators needed during each shift. Volunteers aren't required to have any medical training and are usually asked to help people fill out paperwork, direct them through lines and check that the people who show up have appointments in the first place.
After she finished volunteering, Martinez received a text from the city to sign up for a vaccine appointment within about a week.
“It is the fastest process,” Martinez said about getting immunized at the Alamodome. “I timed it — it must have been like less than 25 minutes from the time that you got there until the time that you left. It felt like I was there for like 10 minutes.”
For the last several months, the demand for vaccines has far outstripped supply.
About 1 in 3 Texans over the age of 16 have received at least once dose of the vaccine, according to state data, ranking Texas among states with the slowest vaccine rollouts.
Health officials know that as the immunizations become easier to get, it'll eventually be harder to convince people to spend their free time helping in exchange for shots. Wellmed, for example, is planning to transition its clinics to be staffed by paid employees.
Until then, Wellmed is welcoming any volunteers who want to lend a hand — whether they still need to be vaccinated or not, said Brittany Pratt, Wellmed's vice president for social responsibility.
On any given day, she said Wellmed needs 70 to 200 volunteers to help at vaccine clinics.
“I had a really nice call with a patient that came through one of our clinics earlier this week,” Pratt said. “He called me to say, ‘I don't know how you did it, but I got both shots. And each time, I felt like I was going to a good friend's house.' ”