Schreiber High School Lucas Milgrim and his cousins Jesse, Jacob, and Ben created the website vaccinatepw.weebly.com to encourage the Port Washington community to get the COVID-19 vaccine.
“I had been hearing reports about vaccine hesitancy, and how important it is to address it at a community level, so my cousins and I came up with the idea to do something about it in Port Washington,” Milgrim said. “We wanted to start this website because we knew that we personally could be doing more to help end the pandemic in Port Washington. There are so many things we have all missed out on over the last year, and we wanted to do whatever we could to allow everybody to get back to normalcy. We knew that the only way to realistically do so would be to help in the vaccination effort, and this was the best we could do to promote vaccinations in Port Washington.”
The vaccinate Port Washington website features updated information regarding vaccination rules, nearby vaccination sites and information about each vaccine. All the information provided on the site is taken various organizations such as the Center for Disease Control (CDC), the World Health Organization as well as local resources such as the Port Washington Public Library (PWPL).
“Users can be sure that this information is accurate because all of these resources are fact checked numerous times before the information is published, and come from a variety of local, state and federal government resources,” Migrim said.
Milgrim stated that the website keeps the Port community informed in a number of ways.
“It provides accurate information from various sources about each vaccine, their short-term side effects, and their safety, allowing the Port community to access these facts easily and quickly,” Milgrim said. “We are also trying to make it accessible to many language speakers and are looking for further assistance with that. Secondly, it keeps the community informed about the many opportunities for vaccination nearby so we can work towards a community with immunity. Additionally, we keep the community informed of informational seminars about the vaccine as well.”
Nassau County Executive Laura Curran announced on May 12 that 56 percent of the total Nassau County population had received at least one vaccine dose, including seven out of 10 adults. Curran stated that “the positive impact of Nassau’s high vaccination rate is clear: there have now been four consecutive days with zero COVID-19 deaths in the county.”
“I think that all of us have seen the importance of vaccines in recent months, as the amount of COVID cases has been steadily decreasing with the introduction of effective vaccines,” Milgrim stated. “To further spread awareness about the importance of vaccines, I have been making sure to post information about how vaccines have benefited the efforts to end COVID-19 and how they make each person safer, which in turn makes the whole community safer.”
Milgrim hopes that spreading awareness through the creation of his website will help those make an educated decision on whether or not to get vaccinated.
“Wherever you go, there is a good chance that some of a town’s population will be hesitant to get a vaccine, especially such a new one,” Milgrim said. “It’s important for these hesitant people to understand the safety of these vaccines so all of Port Washington, and eventually the entire world, can be safe from this virus.”
Milgrim and his team are also working with local religious leaders and members of the community to spread the word about the importance of getting the COVID vaccine.
“We have been looking to recruit community members to help with this effort by filming short video clips to tell people about their experience with the vaccine,” Milgrim said. “We have approached several community and religious leaders to help with this effort, and would be happy to hear from readers as well.” Anyone interested in submitting a clip can email vaccinatepw@gmail.com.
Milgrim and his team plan to keep the website up for as long as possible. They are hoping that the site will become a resource for people to seek out information or want to learn more about the vaccine.
“We definitely will continue to update [the site] with new information and opportunities to get vaccinated in the near future, as we are still in the midst of this pandemic,” Milgrim said. “Hopefully, there is no need for vaccines with this same magnitude again, but we would be eager to help stop vaccine hesitancy against many diseases. We continue to be in touch with others in the community to try to help them promote their programming around the vaccine as well, and we will continue to do so as long as it is necessary.”
Visit vaccinatepw.weebly.com to learn more about the COVID-19 vaccine, or for more information about vaccination effort in the Port Washington community.
