UNT Health Science Center and Tarrant County have opened a vaccination site in the Stop Six neighborhood of Fort Worth. The site opened Tuesday morning at Brighter Outlook, behind Ebenezer Missionary Baptist Church at 4910 Dunbar St. Fort Worth, TX 76105.
"We're just so excited to be able to serve this community," says Pastor Bruce Datcher. "This community, as you know, stands in need of much help, much assistance. We're hoping, by opening our doors, many will get registered, many will come, and we can be able to serve this community and Southeast Fort Worth."
Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks says the site will help reach parts of Fort Worth and Tarrant County where residents may not have access to transportation to existing hubs.
"It was not going to be sufficient to just pick the low-hanging fruit, to vaccinate the easy-to-vaccinate," he says. "We're going to have to go into the hard places and do education and outreach to make sure each and every community has access to the vaccine."
UNT Health Science Center is staffing the site with its vendor, OptumServe.
"We know the African American and Latinx communities have been hard-hit by COVID-19," says UNT Health Science Center Chief Strategy Officer Dr. Sylvia Trent-Adams. "We want to make sure everyone who wants a vaccine has access to it in their community."
Trent-Adams says students will work with OptumServe and also help people register.
"This partnership is great," she says. "It does provide our students with practical clinical experience. It's a great laboratory for our students, and it's also an opportunity for them to learn how to give back to the community. That is a part of the work we do at UNT is to make sure individuals who are a part of programs understand the importance that we are a part of the community."
People who do not have internet access can get help registering for the vaccine Thursday at the church. Trent-Adams says registration information is available at the site in several languages.
Vaccinations will be given by appointment from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. UNT Health Science Center plans to give 1,000 vaccinations this week.
UNT Health Science Center is pulling names from the Tarrant County vaccination registration list here.
