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Dallas' Fair Park Vaccination Site Needs More Volunteers

IMG_5523.JPG Image shows a long white topped open tent with cars stopped under the canopy. Orange road cones dot the scene in front of the vehicles
Bill Zeeble
/
KERA News
Volunteers help move the cars and their passengers along at Dallas' Fair Park vaccination site.

Dallas is getting thousands more COVID-19 vaccines this week, but at the Fair Park vaccination site, the number of volunteers who help things run smoothly is dropping off.

Fair Park has been delivering vaccinations since January, and the demand has outpaced supply. Volunteering at Fair Park could earn you a shot after 10 or 15 hours. But many of those now-inoculated volunteers have disappeared.

The Dallas Fire Department’s Steve Lopez has helped run things at Fair Park since the start. He wants at least 100 more volunteers a day to keep the gears going.

“As we run short on volunteers in key positions,” Battalion Chief Lopez said, “it actually extends wait times."

"Because we don’t have key people at key spots, it’s something we continue to try to navigate. We’ve reassigned personnel, we’ve brought in temporary hires to maintain some normalcy of staffing on site. Our volunteers are absolutely essential. We couldn’t do an operation like this without them.”

With shots now available to all adults, the Fair Park site is expected to see thousands of more people arriving. While the process has been relatively efficient, but that could change.

“Sometimes people wait 15 to 30 minutes to complete the process, which is remarkable,” said Christian Grisales, with Dallas County Health and Human Services. ”Now if we’re short, that might be a little bit longer. So we desperately need that help.”

Grisales says the sooner everyone who wants a vaccine gets it, the better for the whole community. And it’s volunteers who can speed things along.

If you're interested in volunteering -
https://www.voly.org/causes/all-urgent-needs.html

Got a tip? Email Reporter Bill Zeeble at bzeeble@kera.org. You can follow him on Twitter @bzeeble.

KERA News is made possible through the generosity of our members. If you find this reporting valuable, consider making a tax-deductible gifttoday. Thank you.

Bill Zeeble has been a full-time reporter at KERA since 1992, covering everything from medicine to the Mavericks and education to environmental issues.