by Arnold R. Grahl

Rotary and Rotaract members in Kingston, Ontario, Canada, have been volunteering at the region’s largest COVID-19 vaccination center, helping to facilitate the process of immunizing hundreds of people per day.

Shortly after COVID-19 vaccines became available to the province in March, Kingston, Frontenac, and Lennox & Addington (KFL&A) Public Health converted a hockey rink in the INVISTA Centre into a vaccination site. Local health workers have been vaccinating about 300 people a day and are preparing to inoculate up to 2,000 a day when more vaccines become available.

Appointments were initially open to medical workers, people who are at least 80 years old, and residents of nursing or retirement homes. But appointments will expand to people in other demographic groups when the supply increases.

Mike Moore, a member of the Rotary Club of Kingston-Frontenac, was watching news coverage of mass COVID-19 vaccination sites in the U.S. when he realized local Rotary clubs could be of use at the site near them.

“It’s directing traffic or directing people or assisting in any non-technical way,” says Moore. “This is what we do — we volunteer for stuff like this all the time. Our public health authorities aren’t usually dealing with a pandemic, and I knew they would need help.”

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