A Facebook group ran by volunteers is hoping to help people in Washington who are struggling to find a COVID-19 vaccine appointment.
The group, called “Find a COVID shot WA” is just over a month old, but it’s already grown to over 38,000 members on Facebook. The group has 75 administrator volunteers, who work tirelessly monitoring the page and helping those in high risk communities to locate appointments.
“The goal of our group is to help the highest risk communities get access to vaccines, anywhere in the state of Washington,” said one of the co-founders who only likes to be referred to by his first name, Steve, “We have helped someone in every county in the state. We don’t prioritize any county from a standpoint of who gets help and who doesn’t. It’s important that what we’re doing is just part of being a member of the community and part of Washington state.”
When a member makes a post in the group, they can add the hashtags “#searching” or “#support” which each have their own functions for how they are handled in the group.
“#searching” is for those who are struggling finding an appointment and just need to be pointed in the right direction. Ideally, members using this hashtag can set the appointment up for themselves once they locate a provider taking appointments.
“#support” is for those who might need a little extra help in setting the appointment up. Steve tells us that the administrators of the group get an alert when a post features “#support” and from there, the person who made the post is partnered up one-on-one with a volunteer until an appointment is booked.
“As far as we know we’ve had a 100% success rate,” Steve says.
One of the many people that the group has helped out is Cindy Wright, a member of the Facebook page who lives in Seattle. She was struggling finding a vaccine appointment for her mother across the state in Spokane. However, thanks to the group, she found one.
“I was over the moon that day,” Cindy says, “I was like, ‘I got an appointment! I had been trying and I was like thank you, thank you, thank you and wanting to then help others.”
Wanting to help others is what the group is built on. Steve said that he hopes every person who is aided by the group becomes the next in line to help others who are struggling. That’s exactly what Cindy did, she still posts in the group and says it’s just paying it forward. As for Steve and the rest of the volunteers, the pressure is high, but the feeling of helping those in need keeps them going.
“What I’ll tell everybody is that it’s getting better every day,” Steve says, “and we’re seeing this individual by individual, case by case, and I can tell you that it has only gotten better over the last few weeks. But there is an immense amount of pressure, no question about it.”
“The number of people I’ve seen line up to help other people is jaw-dropping, it’s been really life changing. This has been the best 30 days of my life.”
