MyVaccineCounts
Raising awareness of the importance of COVID-19 vaccines and updated boosters.
Welcome to the MyVaccineCounts initiative! Funded by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC) partnered with Delaware and Pennsylvania’s Public Health Associations to deploy vaccinations, undertake grassroots vaccine education and confidence work, and connect underserved communities to care.
PHMC and its partners worked with 159 Community Health Workers representing 22 organizations across Pennsylvania and Delaware, leading to 3,966 vaccine doses administered and 2,071,321 people reached virtually and through 1,421 in-person events.
Though the ongoing funding of MyVaccineCounts is ending, we’re pleased to share resources from the initiative’s Campaign Toolkit. This kit includes campaign content, educational materials and resources on the COVID-19 vaccines and boosters that you can share at events, over email or social media.
A library of videos to help generate awareness of the importance of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters
A library of graphics to help generate awareness of the importance of COVID-19 vaccines and boosters.
Share these posts on your personal social media channels or your organization’s channels to help increase COVID-19 vaccine awareness.
Community Health Worker Toolkit
A comprehensive and easy-to-read COVID-19 toolkit that covers a variety of topics on vaccine hesitancy, links for additional resources, and free trainings available to you
The COVID-19 Community Health Worker (CHW) Initiative aims to address persistent health disparities and vaccine hesitancy in Pennsylvania and Delaware by offering support and resources to vulnerable and under-resourced communities, and to newly identified individuals eligible to receive the COVID-19 vaccine and/or booster doses.
Below are stories from community residents, our CHWs and local organizations on their journey to encourage COVID-19 vaccinations.
Latino Connection is a leader in community education and health outreach, forgoing initiatives that are first of the kind and span across corporate and nonprofit partnerships. Pastor Alex Alvarado and Latino Connection shared details on how they collaborated in order to connect with community members and reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among the Latino community.
Latino Connection is a leader in community education and health outreach, forging initiatives that are the first of their kind and span across corporate and nonprofit partnerships. As part of the HRSA grant from Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), we partnered with Paster Alex Alvarado of Casa De Reconciliación in York, Pennsylvania to help educate residents on the importance of COVID-19 vaccination.
We held COVID-19 vaccination clinics in our community. At these events, about 300-400 people stopped by to learn more. Our team found that people weren’t getting vaccinated due to lack of information, language barriers, religious beliefs, or fear due to lack of official documentation.
To help reduce these barriers, we used the My Vaccine Counts handouts in Spanish and talked to individuals before or after church services. In the Hispanic community, vaccine awareness is spread by word of mouth. We saw that when one family member got vaccinated, another family member would come within the following weeks. This is how the vaccination numbers kept growing.
Pastor Alvarado also offered additional resources, including a food bank, weekly vaccine administration and support groups in partnership with Latino Connection. He is trusted by community members because of his Christian beliefs. On his leadership role, Pastor Alvarado commented, “I’m very satisfied that I’m able to help people, and I feel really great about that.”
Read more about Latino Connection on their website.
Follow Latino Connection on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Jill Bauer-Reese, co-founder of Kensington Voice, shared details about its art contest that was designed to inspire conversation and increase COVID-19 vaccination.
Kensington Voice is a unique community newsroom that offers both direct services to North Philadelphia residents and publishes news stories created from on-the-ground information collection. The team identified low vaccination rates among residents and applied for the HRSA grand from Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC). This grant allowed the Kensington Voice team to get even more involved in engagement with the local community. A key finding was that while the newspaper had COVID-19 information in English and Spanish, many people were experiencing information fatigue – and they didn’t want to see, read or talk about COVID-19 anymore.
The team need something to break through, and that’s where an idea of an art contest started. The newspaper held a contest for all ages and offered prizes to make it more competitive. It was open for artwork, poetry and spoken word submissions. This allowed our team to engaged with people on multiple levels and bring up COVID-19 as part of a new conversation. During the submission process, individuals were also asked to take a survey. This helped us to measure the COVID-19 vaccine perceptions, vaccination status and identify barriers to vaccination for future content planning.
The survey data indicated a positive movement in vaccine confidence. Prior to the project, 28.1% of people indicated vaccine confidence, while 45.5% indicated vaccine confidence toward the end of the project. Another great measure of success was that 20% said the art contest impacted their decision to get vaccinated.
The art project also encouraged people to think about COVID-19 vaccination, even if it was just voting on the entries. It was a great way to break through to those individuals we found were not interested in hearing about COVID-19. The contest also helped to showcase creative expression about something that has been a traumatic experience for people, especially children whose routines have been disrupted. Thanks to the HRSA grant and collaborating with PHMC, we’re able to create new interventions and reach our community members on this important public health topic.
Read more about Kensington Voice on their website.
Follow Kensington Voice on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) offers a comprehensive array of programs and projects to meet the needs of a low-income immigrant community. Program Manager Esther Castillo shared a uniqiue success story on how PCDC reached vaccine-hesitant parents and children through the arts.
Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) has a mission to preserve, protect and promote Chinatown as a viable ethnic, residential and business community serving over 3,000 clients per year. To meet the needs of a low-income immigrant community, PCDC offers a comprehensive array of programs.
We found that parents in our community are especially hesitant about vaccinating their children. Although in-language outreach materials that provide accurate information about COVID-19 updates and vaccines can help ease their concerns, many parents still feel helpless or anxious about the vaccines.
The PCDC team believed that one of the best ways to reach vaccine-hesitant people was through the arts. In partnership with local artist Chenlin Cao, we developed a coloring contest to reach out to parents of young children. The contest was designed for three different age groups and promoted through outreach workers in Chinese and English at local schools, shops and restaurants, and online through our social media channels. The literature and design included COVID-19 vaccination messaging.
The coloring contest resulted in 124 beautiful art submissions! 30 finalists were selected for the community to vote on. Nine winners were selected with 264 votes casted by local community members. We also did a survey of the voters in which 43.6% indicated that the program “encouraged me or my child(ren) to get vaccinated.” This program is a successful example of how we used unconventional approaches to share COVID-19 vaccination information with parents and children to increase vaccination in our community.
Read more about PCDC on their website.
NOMO Foundation is an early intervention and prevention program whose mission is to provide a safe space for youth to develop life skills that will increase their potential to become self-sufficient. Click to read their success stories on community outreach and incorporating COVID-19 testing into already planned back-to-school events.
The staff at NOMO Foundation identified barriers to COVID-19 vaccination in their Philadelphia community. These included a lack of trust in government information, data suggesting that less individuals are dying from COVID-19 infections, and a fear that vaccination will have long-term negative effects.
To address these barriers, the staff included COVID-19 outreach into their existing outreach programs. Through NOMO Foundation’s efforts as part of the My Vaccine Counts project, more than 900 people received their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. More than 880 people received the COVID-19 booster dose. The staff heard feedback that talking to community health workers, reading factual information on the website, and receiving flyers about COVID-19 vaccination at school, college or religious sites influenced their decision to get the vaccine. To date, an estimated 50,000 individuals have been engaged in outreach through 656 different activities.
NOMO Foundation also promoted COVID-19 testing. One example is the annual Prep-Rally, which is a back-to-school book bag giveaway and non-violence event. Attendees received book bags, resources, hygiene products and free COVID-19 testing. During the event, COVID-19 tests were provided to 150 people. Regular community outreach at locations the community is familiar with makes a huge difference in getting tested and talking about COVID-19 vaccine questions.
Read more about NOMO Foundation on their website.
Latino Connection is a leader in community education and health outreach, forgoing initiatives that are first of the kind and span across corporate and nonprofit partnerships. Pastor Alex Alvarado and Latino Connection shared details on how they collaborated in order to connect with community members and reduce COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy among the Latino community.
Latino Connection is a leader in community education and health outreach, forging initiatives that are the first of their kind and span across corporate and nonprofit partnerships. As part of the HRSA grant from Public Health Management Corporation (PHMC), we partnered with Paster Alex Alvarado of Casa De Reconciliación in York, Pennsylvania to help educate residents on the importance of COVID-19 vaccination.
We held COVID-19 vaccination clinics in our community. At these events, about 300-400 people stopped by to learn more. Our team found that people weren’t getting vaccinated due to lack of information, language barriers, religious beliefs, or fear due to lack of official documentation.
To help reduce these barriers, we used the My Vaccine Counts handouts in Spanish and talked to individuals before or after church services. In the Hispanic community, vaccine awareness is spread by word of mouth. We saw that when one family member got vaccinated, another family member would come within the following weeks. This is how the vaccination numbers kept growing.
Pastor Alvarado also offered additional resources, including a food bank, weekly vaccine administration and support groups in partnership with Latino Connection. He is trusted by community members because of his Christian beliefs. On his leadership role, Pastor Alvarado commented, “I’m very satisfied that I’m able to help people, and I feel really great about that.”
Read more about Latino Connection on their website.
Follow Latino Connection on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Jill Bauer-Reese, co-founder of Kensington Voice, shared details about its art contest that was designed to inspire conversation and increase COVID-19 vaccination.
Kensington Voice is a unique community newsroom that offers both direct services to North Philadelphia residents and publishes news stories created from on-the-ground information collection. The team identified low vaccination rates among residents and applied for the HRSA grand from Philadelphia Health Management Corporation (PHMC). This grant allowed the Kensington Voice team to get even more involved in engagement with the local community. A key finding was that while the newspaper had COVID-19 information in English and Spanish, many people were experiencing information fatigue – and they didn’t want to see, read or talk about COVID-19 anymore.
The team need something to break through, and that’s where an idea of an art contest started. The newspaper held a contest for all ages and offered prizes to make it more competitive. It was open for artwork, poetry and spoken word submissions. This allowed our team to engaged with people on multiple levels and bring up COVID-19 as part of a new conversation. During the submission process, individuals were also asked to take a survey. This helped us to measure the COVID-19 vaccine perceptions, vaccination status and identify barriers to vaccination for future content planning.
The survey data indicated a positive movement in vaccine confidence. Prior to the project, 28.1% of people indicated vaccine confidence, while 45.5% indicated vaccine confidence toward the end of the project. Another great measure of success was that 20% said the art contest impacted their decision to get vaccinated.
The art project also encouraged people to think about COVID-19 vaccination, even if it was just voting on the entries. It was a great way to break through to those individuals we found were not interested in hearing about COVID-19. The contest also helped to showcase creative expression about something that has been a traumatic experience for people, especially children whose routines have been disrupted. Thanks to the HRSA grant and collaborating with PHMC, we’re able to create new interventions and reach our community members on this important public health topic.
Read more about Kensington Voice on their website.
Follow Kensington Voice on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram.
Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) offers a comprehensive array of programs and projects to meet the needs of a low-income immigrant community. Program Manager Esther Castillo shared a uniqiue success story on how PCDC reached vaccine-hesitant parents and children through the arts.
Philadelphia Chinatown Development Corporation (PCDC) has a mission to preserve, protect and promote Chinatown as a viable ethnic, residential and business community serving over 3,000 clients per year. To meet the needs of a low-income immigrant community, PCDC offers a comprehensive array of programs.
We found that parents in our community are especially hesitant about vaccinating their children. Although in-language outreach materials that provide accurate information about COVID-19 updates and vaccines can help ease their concerns, many parents still feel helpless or anxious about the vaccines.
The PCDC team believed that one of the best ways to reach vaccine-hesitant people was through the arts. In partnership with local artist Chenlin Cao, we developed a coloring contest to reach out to parents of young children. The contest was designed for three different age groups and promoted through outreach workers in Chinese and English at local schools, shops and restaurants, and online through our social media channels. The literature and design included COVID-19 vaccination messaging.
The coloring contest resulted in 124 beautiful art submissions! 30 finalists were selected for the community to vote on. Nine winners were selected with 264 votes casted by local community members. We also did a survey of the voters in which 43.6% indicated that the program “encouraged me or my child(ren) to get vaccinated.” This program is a successful example of how we used unconventional approaches to share COVID-19 vaccination information with parents and children to increase vaccination in our community.
Read more about PCDC on their website.
NOMO Foundation is an early intervention and prevention program whose mission is to provide a safe space for youth to develop life skills that will increase their potential to become self-sufficient. Click to read their success stories on community outreach and incorporating COVID-19 testing into already planned back-to-school events.
The staff at NOMO Foundation identified barriers to COVID-19 vaccination in their Philadelphia community. These included a lack of trust in government information, data suggesting that less individuals are dying from COVID-19 infections, and a fear that vaccination will have long-term negative effects.
To address these barriers, the staff included COVID-19 outreach into their existing outreach programs. Through NOMO Foundation’s efforts as part of the My Vaccine Counts project, more than 900 people received their first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccination. More than 880 people received the COVID-19 booster dose. The staff heard feedback that talking to community health workers, reading factual information on the website, and receiving flyers about COVID-19 vaccination at school, college or religious sites influenced their decision to get the vaccine. To date, an estimated 50,000 individuals have been engaged in outreach through 656 different activities.
NOMO Foundation also promoted COVID-19 testing. One example is the annual Prep-Rally, which is a back-to-school book bag giveaway and non-violence event. Attendees received book bags, resources, hygiene products and free COVID-19 testing. During the event, COVID-19 tests were provided to 150 people. Regular community outreach at locations the community is familiar with makes a huge difference in getting tested and talking about COVID-19 vaccine questions.
Read more about NOMO Foundation on their website.
Alexis is a Community Health Worker at A Home is A Right, Inc. (AHARI). She feels strongly that serving as a Community Health Worker allows her to be a part of the solution to combat the COVID-19 pandemic. Alexis shares her experience working with Philadelphians ages 12-25 to increase vaccination rates with a focus on outreach to homeless kids under the age of 18 years living in group homes.
AHARI is a nonprofit organization whose mission is to support homeless veterans and their families, as well as veterans at risk of becoming homeless in Philadelphia. Through our monthly event series, we saw that myths and stereotypes about the COVID-19 vaccines were causing vaccine hesitancy for people ages 12-25 years in our community. A specific subset of these conversation was among homeless children under the age of 18 years who have no guardians and live in group homes. Our outreach efforts focused on this population of children placed in Philadelphia shelters who were often coming from across the state of Pennsylvania.
We gave a COVID-19 training in a group setting that involved providing historical information about infectious disease control; explaining universal precautions; background on COVID-19 (what it is, how it spreads, prevention measures, etc.); how residential staff is keeping residents, visitors and staff safe; answering questions; and providing hand sanitizers, wipes, and information on where they can get vaccinated.
We slowly uncovered through group discussions that the children were opposed to the vaccines, believed in myths about them, and wanted to debate the science. Our experts offered factual information and invited other children who were already vaccinated to talk about their decision and experiences. Our team learned that the biggest gap is finding a location to get vaccinated, as many homeless children don’t have a primary care doctor. We were able to help support children in finding vaccine locations.
Overall, the environment of trust that we created and the children’s feeling that they were being heard made a difference in changing their minds to get vaccinated on the spot.
Bradbury-Sullivan LGBT Community Center creates a vibrant LGBTQ+ community in the Lehigh Valley through arts, health, youth, training, and Pride programs. Local residents Shawanna and Donnell share their experience working with Community Health Workers to learn more about and get vaccinated against COVID-19.
Shawanna
Shawanna, 38, was hesitant to get the COVID-19 vaccine because she was afraid of needles. A Community Health Worker at the center talked with Shawanna about the vaccine’s benefits and helped her to overcome her fear. Shawanna decided to get the vaccine at her local Weis Pharmacy. The provider spoke with her, directed her to not watch herself getting the shot, and helped her feel comfortable before, during and after vaccination.
Donnell
Donnell, 64, was proactive in taking responsibility for her and her family’s health during the pandemic. She received her initial two vaccines at a local pharmacy and the first booster last December. Upon learning that the center was hosting a clinic to offer the second booster dose, she signed up as soon as she was eligible.
“I was happy to return to the center for my second COVID-19 booster dose. I had gotten my flu shot at clinics held there during the past two flu seasons. Other members of my family have also gotten initial COVID-19 vaccines there in early 2021 and the second booster this summer. The location is welcoming and convenient. Thanks to Bradbury-Sullivan for offering these options to the community,” said Donnell.