CLILA Partnership With City, County Helps Boost Vaccination Rate
There’s a lot of misinformation out there about COVID-19 and the COVID-19 vaccines. Getting the right information to people so they can make well informed choices is a challenge – a challenge made even tougher when people you’re trying to reach don’t necessarily speak the same language. A partnership between the City of Dalton, Whitfield County, and CLILA is working to do just that and increase the vaccination rate of the area’s Hispanic community.
The partnership was formalized in August, with $25,000 in funding from both governments going to CLILA (the Coalition of Latino Leaders, a local advocacy group supporting Dalton’s Hispanic community) to help fund the organization’s COVID outreach. The City expects to reimburse the funds from federal money made available to local governments as part of the American Rescue Plan Act.
Photo at right: America Gruner, founder of CLILA, posing at the organization's headquarters recently
CLILA, an all-volunteer organization, has been working for more than a year on its COVID outreach. Their efforts began in March 2020 when they began working to keep residents up to date with the latest information about the virus.
“We saw the cases were growing and growing and we saw that people were misinformed. They believed a lot of myths about COVID or maybe they didn’t know what was it, the symptoms, all of that so we started providing information to them,” said America Gruner, the founder of CLILA. “And then we saw that there were people that wanted to be tested but there were no hours that they could go to the places that were offering the testing. So we asked [Dalton City Councilmember] Annalee [Harlan] if she could come and help us do testing and she did it.”
CLILA also began working with the North Georgia Health District to provide flexible COVID testing times so that residents doing shift work in local manufacturing plants could have access to testing and avoid spreading the virus. Once the COVID vaccines became available early in 2021, the organization shifted gears to try to get as many people vaccinated as they could.
Above: A recent vaccine drive run by CLILA (source: CLILA Facebook page)
“We felt an urgency because we saw so many cases and the vaccination rate among Latinos locally was really low so we wanted to do something to provide all the options to people,” Gruner said, noting that there was a great deal of misinformation in the Hispanic community. “What we’re doing is we are talking to them in a very simple way. Culturally relevant in a way that they can identify with. There are many myths… myths about using natural remedies, like if you drink this tea … things like that that are popular in rural areas. We explain to them that it’s not effective and we distribute the information from the CDC or public health in Spanish that’s very, very simple.”
CLILA began to host vaccination drives earlier this year in partnership with the City of Dalton, North Georgia Health District, and Community Hospice. The drives were very successful, with more than 800 residents receiving the vaccine at the nine events held before August.
“America Gruner, it’s hard to do better than her when it comes to welcoming people to encourage them to be vaccinated,” said City Councilmember Annalee Harlan. “It was never pushing anyone into it or shaming anyone into it, she welcomes people to do this and that way they can make sure they can take care of themselves and their families and I don’t think anyone does that better than her. “
Above: A Spanish-speaking healthcare educator goes door-to-door to raise awareness of the COVID-19 virus and the effectiveness of vaccines (Source: CLILA Facebook page)
CLILA’s outreach has been met with success in part because of the trust they’ve built up over the years with Hispanic residents of Whitfield County.
“Many people have told us that they wouldn’t go anywhere but here,” Gruner said. “They’re afraid of going to a government building or are they going to ask appointments because people don’t feel comfortably making appointments online, so we can help them do that.”
“It was like she was vouching for the City of Dalton,” Harlan said. “When the people in our community who are Hispanic saw our fire department personnel and our local nursing volunteers together with her organization and we would take pictures afterwards and it was just a good partnership.”
City Councilmember Annalee Harlan
The funding from Dalton and Whitfield County is allowing CLILA to expand its efforts, sending two Spanish-speaking healthcare educators door-to-door in neighborhoods where vaccination rates are low to visit families and make sure they have accurate and current information about the pandemic, the dangers of COVID, and the effectiveness of the vaccine and where to get it. The organization is also now hosting regular vaccination events at their headquarters in the Delray Farms grocery store building, giving the vaccine from 1:30 pm until 6:30 pm each Saturday. In August, CLILA had their most successful month, vaccinated 428 people. 214 more residents have been vaccinated in the first two weekends of September. The funding also allows CLILA to produce posters and flyers to distribute throughout the community to raise awareness.
“I’m amazed about the support the city has given us because they are very flexible and they understand that we are part of the same community,” Gruner said. “We want to be proactive and we want to do something and they have offered us that support. Otherwise, it would be very difficult. We would continue, but it would be very difficult.”
