When the pandemic shut down its overseas work, a Mobile ministry did not wait for conditions to return to normal. It found a new job to do at home: getting older residents through the COVID-19 vaccine process.
Before the virus, Hands and Feet Ministries traveled to parts of Mexico to help under-resourced communities launch small businesses. With that work stalled, the organization turned its attention to needs in its own community.
“When we saw that this vaccine rollout was coming, we were able to locate some needs in the distribution of it,” said Zach Brining, executive director of Hands and Feet Ministries.
A vaccine line that started it
The idea took shape after Brining brought an older family member to a vaccine event and found elderly people standing in line for hours. He said the setup did not look workable for people that age, and he and his relative ultimately had to leave because neither could stand in line that long.
Not long after, large pharmacy chains began taking appointments for eligible groups. That opened a role the ministry could fill: helping seniors navigate the booking process and then physically get to their appointments.
Catching doses before they expired
The work expanded into a partnership with pharmacies to solve a second problem. When opened vaccine vials were close to expiring, unused doses risked being discarded.
“That kind of went into being a partner with these pharmacies to set up lists, when the vaccine was about to go bad, to call people that were not yet eligible,” Brining said.
By the ministry’s count, the effort had helped roughly 80 to 90 people secure vaccine appointments and had helped keep hundreds of doses from being thrown out.
Broader than seniors
As eligibility widened, so did the group the ministry serves. Beyond senior citizens, volunteers began assisting residents with limited computer access and others who ran into obstacles with online-only appointment systems.
The shift left the organization doing work that looks nothing like its original mission but draws on the same approach: identifying a practical gap and filling it.