Comsewogue hosts community vaccines

Comsewogue School District wanted to give back to its community, and by doing so, they got over 300 residents vaccinated. 

Jennifer Quinn, superintendent of the district, said that the board was working to coordinate receiving vaccines to distribute from local drug stores — but it wasn’t happening for a while. After realizing a student worked at Walgreens, they were able to set something up.

“I have to say, they have been so great,” she said.

Quinn said the district initially opened it up to staff, and about 150 people took advantage of it. 

On Tuesday, March 16, socially distanced tables were set up throughout the gym, helping people receive their first shot of the COVID-19 vaccine. 

“Then Walgreens was kind enough to let us put it out to the general public, and we were able to get other people from the community to be vaccinated,” Quinn added. “We had such a strong response that Walgreens has offered to come in a second day for our community.”

Assistant superintendent Joseph Coniglione said that although it happened quick, everyone is “extremely grateful.”

Comsewogue students will be returning to a five-day school week starting April 6 and bringing the vaccine to staff and teachers gives them peace of mind.

“We were really concerned about having staff to come back, who wanted to be vaccinated, but were not able to get the vaccination,” Quinn said. “So, this was such a relief.”

Corey Prinz, a board trustee who was instrumental in helping coordinate the event, said that about three weeks ago, the team realized it was important heading toward the full-week re-turn and began working toward this goal. 

“Part of the mindset people had coming back stemmed from the idea that vaccinations are really spread out,” he said.  “And it didn’t actually look so good, so we stuck on it and even under short notice, it’s unbelievable the response we got today.”

Quinn said they are working with the drugstore to allocate another day to host another event soon.