Mobile vaccination site vaccinates residents in Immokalee

A farming community is getting a vaccine boost.

The Department of Emergency Management has a mobile vaccination site it hopes will get shots in the arms of residents of Immokalee. The vaccination site cannot be found online. About 450 people were vaccinated at the site on Friday.

“The focus is the farm community,” said Gerardo Reyes Chávez with the Coalition of Immokalee Workers. “We have been fighting for it, we have been asking for it.”

Nezahualcoyotl Xiuhtecutli, general coordinator for the Farm Workers Association of Florida, said a lot of farmworkers don’t have a form of ID.

“Some may have a passport, but a passport does not prove that you are a Florida resident,” Xiuhtecutli said.

There is renewed urgency to get this done. The Coalition of Immokalee Workers say people will soon head north to work fields there.

Without the vaccine, they might carry COVID-19.

“You cannot call people essential and expect them to risk their lives for this country without putting the resources in their court so they can be protected while doing that,” Reyes Chávez said.

Florida has about 100,000 workers. Of those, about 20,000 work in the fields of Immokalee.

Polo is one of those workers. He said the mobile site was a very special way to bring awareness for all of the workers in Immokalee to be able to get vaccinated.