GWINNETT COUNTY, Ga. — In a step toward returning to normal, Gwinnett County Public Schools (GCPS) partnered with Walmart, Atlanta Gladiators, and the Gladiators Foundation to help vaccinate more students and school staff.
Over the May 22 weekend, the groups vaccinated 599 Gwinnett students and parents in Duluth and Snellville.
In efforts to keep fighting vaccine hesitancy and get those 12 and older vaccinated, their new goal is to vaccinate 30,000 GCPS students in eight weekends.
"The school district was absolutely on board," said James. "They did the analysis of the age groups that we're looking for and they targeted and were able to come up with 30,000 and say hey, this demographic we're able to reach out to 30,000 students and we said okay, let's do it. We are prepared to reach that demand."
James said hosting these events in a large school district like Gwinnett helps make vaccines more accessible to folks, which is often a big barrier for many families.
"Gwinnett County, the most diverse county in all of the United States, folks that are Hispanic, Latino, Pan-Asian, African Americans that are coming from other cities and other states, they now hockey and they understand hockey but also the platform we're using with our Latino partners, we gain that trust and it washes away that hesitancy of wanting to come get vaccinated," James said.
He adds that it is also a way for them to get to communities of color, many of which have been hesitant to get the shot.
"We are strongly supporting that sense of wanting back to normal but also to provide the platform for folks who don't have the right access to that," said James.
Seventeen-year-old Francisco Armstrong has two parents who work in healthcare and decided to get the vaccine.
"Some of my friends, they don't think they need to get it," he said. "They definitely need to. Just so that it stops."
His mother, Maricelis, has also seen the hesitancy first-hand but believes events like this one will help fight that. She volunteers at different vaccination clinics to help drive Georgia's numbers up.
"I was expecting that now that 12 to 18 [year olds] can get it, I was expecting the vaccination sites to be full, but that's not happening," she said. "But I know I have a lot of friends and family members that are a little hesitant about it."
Her husband works in an intensive care unit. They said they wanted to vaccinate their kids as soon as they became eligible for the COVID-19 vaccine.
"We know from our own experience that young people ended up in the ICU so I really wanted [Francisco] to be protected," she said. "I know the vaccine works, I trust science so I wanted him to get it as soon as possible."
The next events hosted by the Gwinnett County School District, Walmart, the Atlanta Gladiators, and the Gladiators Foundation will be in other Gwinnett County schools but James says anybody will be welcome.
We will post details when they are released.