Vax van at Westfield Soup Kitchen earlier this month. (Photo submitted)
WESTFIELD – Long-time, 25-year Westfield Soup Kitchen volunteer Sandra Mackler spoke to the City Council on Aug. 19, and asked them to encourage vaccination efforts.
“We need a collaborative effort, time, planning, funding and a little imagination. We need to focus on the community,” Mackler said, speaking about the low vaccination rates in Westfield compared to the rest of the state and even surrounding communities.
Mackler said what motivated her to start making phone calls concerning the vax rate in Westfield was what she had seen happening at the Soup Kitchen. “Handing out brown paper bag meals on the sidewalk (because no one can enter the building), all winter and now in the heat, (has) been challenging at best,” she said.
She started to call the Westfield Health Department and the Mayor’s office, to see whether more could be done to reach out to the community. “I learned if you make enough phone calls, you get put on a committee,” Mackler said, eventually finding herself the only volunteer on a committee with Baystate Medical staff and no representation from Westfield.
The committee, which has since disbanded, made plans to hold three clinics in Westfield, and Mackler’s role was to obtain support and funding for them. “I was advised by the Mayor that we should be able to secure funding, $2,500, to be used for promotional expenses and $10 gift cards as a means of thanking those folks who’d been ‘vax hesitant’ who’d stepped up to get the vax. I found out the following day that the funding was not available, but that the Health Department would be exploring alternate funding sources,” she said.
Mackler said the group did hold three vaccination sites on Aug. 2 and Aug. 11, but “only a handful of folks” showed up. She said more promotion and support was needed. Weather also factored in, as the clinic conducted at the Soup Kitchen was during one of the hottest days of the summer, and there were fewer people there than she had ever seen. She was able to get translators to reach out to some new residents, part of the effort she said is needed.
“Here’s my issue: as of this week, 49 percent of Westfield residents have been vaxed, lower than the 51 percent of Hampden County, and significantly lower than the state. COVID cases increased by 148 percent from last week, and 85 percent of the new cases were unvaxed. We know that (here), like everywhere in the county, our younger folks (under 30) are largely unvaxed,” Mackler told the Council on Thursday.
“I think we can do better, and we need to do better, but I am frustrated by the apparent lack of commitment on the part of the city to improve our vax rate,” she added.
Mackler said what has worked in other communities has been collaboration among public health officials, faith based groups, businesses, local agencies and individual volunteers; along with some effort, funding, and a bit of imagination. “We know the more people get vaxed, the greater the likelihood that we’ll all get to resume our normal lives,” she said.
“I am asking for your support. We need this city to initiate a task force to develop strategies to address this problem. We need our local leaders to get involved in the planning and implementation of these strategies. We recognized that a ‘one size fits all’ approach is unlikely to be effective, and that local outreach will provide some valuable insight into how best to accomplish our goal.”
Mackler said she has made a contact with a person at the state Department of Health who has a van that will come for a clinic. “I’m looking for the city to step up and make their presence known, and start reaching out to some of our communities who are vax resistant,” she said.
She said events on the green for example are very popular and people turn out. “I bet there’s one coming up. If the city is behind it, that would be the focus, and we’ll have the vax van there. It has to be from the city,” she said.
“We need a task force, and need our local leaders to get involved, and we’re going to need financial support from the city. When I read agenda item number 5 and saw the City of Westfield is about to accept $17 million of ARPA money, I knew I had to be here tonight,” Mackler said in conclusion.
