Volunteers help with Cape County vaccination efforts

The regional COVID-19 vaccination effort leading Cape Girardeau County to have the highest percentage of its population vaccinated in the state with at least one dose was not only achieved by the government, health care systems and pharmacies. It has also been fueled by the efforts of local volunteers.

Kathy Swan, a volunteer who is a retired nurse and former Missouri House representative, decided to join the Cape Girardeau County Public Health Center to help the vaccination effort move forward in whatever way she can.

“I think the bottom line is, once you’re a nurse, you’re always a nurse. And along with that goes an obligation to help, particularly in a situation like this, when you have skills and the know-how to do so,” Swan said.

She said the volunteers have enabled the effort to vaccinate more people and encouraged medical and non-medical people to help.

Not everything she is doing requires medical professional training, either. She said she is filling out vaccination cards, guiding people at the clinics and making phone calls to those without an email address who are eligible vaccination.

Jessica Sexton, assistant emergency management director at the Cape Girardeau Fire Department, helps organize the vaccine volunteers.

Sexton said volunteers have ranged from retired or non-working certified medical professionals and those from the community who are not trained medically.

Volunteers help in the registration process, making sure paperwork is being filled out, cleaning materials, making phone calls to help those eligible get an appointment, sometimes giving out a vaccine dose if they have proper training and many other things.

Whether they need more volunteers “remains to be seen,” Sexton said, and right now, there are enough volunteers for their needs.

Although she welcomes anyone who is interested in volunteering to contact her at jsexton@cityofcapegiradeau.org, since things can change down the road of the vaccination effort that is predicted to go on for months and will grow as more people become eligible.