Last week, Deborah Burt sent an email to all club members regarding a status update on our International Project in Ocoto Alto, Peru. With the support of the Host Rotary Club - Sullana Capullanas Turicarami and the team from Water Missions in Peru, our club is helping to build 87 latrines in the community of Ocoto Alto. The project is almost complete--they are just finishing up with a few final details such as painting and signage. 

Thank you all for your interest on Rotary Ready. To-date, we have close to 1000 volunteer sign-ups in support of the efforts by hospitals and other vaccine providers to get all of South Carolina vaccinated. We have supported two successful pilot events led by MUSC in Mt. Pleasant and Florence. Right now, the critical path to moving forward with large scale events is for hospitals and other vaccine providers to access sufficient vaccine doses to support those mass vaccination events. We understand events are in the planning stages when sufficient doses are available. We will notify volunteers, living near a site, once we learn one has been scheduled and have been asked to provide support. Our goal primary goal is to develop teams of non-medical personnel to handle tasks such as traffic flow, registration, and other paperwork as we did in the two MUSC pilot events.

For medical volunteers, we understand there are a variety of licenses and certification programs. These are run by the hospital providers. It may make sense for people with medical credentials who want to volunteer now to contact a hospital directly. We will provide information for this group as we get it from hospitals and other vaccine providers.

Accessing the rural and minority populations is particularly important to us, so we’re engaging with Community Leaders on that topic. In two communities in the Charleston area, we are having early conversations on sites that might be suitable for mass vaccination events. As this progresses, we will be posting some site guidelines on rotaryready.com for you to consider in your own regions.

I know that many of you are eager to get started and waiting for more information. We feel the same emotions and hope the speed with which vaccines become available accelerates. Across South Carolina, some 10 million vaccinations will need to delivered. This is already a huge job for the vaccine providers. Our goal is to do all we can to support them in the monumental effort. We thank you for your willingness to help in this important project and will informed when we learn of specific events in your region.
 

It's not too late to volunteer by registering on the website: RotaryReady.com Big push will happen as the larger vaccine doses arrive in our state on more consistant basis.