Giving 'lives back'; National Guard top brass tour Operation Vaccination
It was some three months ago that Missouri Air National Guard Brig. Gen. Kenneth Eaves got orders from his adjutant general to “send people to Pastor Miles.”
He didn’t know then about the Rev. John Modest Miles, the Morning Star Missionary Baptist Church’s partnership with LINC or their audacious plan to deliver thousands of Covid-19 vaccines where they were needed most in East Kansas City.
“I had no idea what we were sending them to,” Eaves said. “But I can tell you,” he said now, addressing the unit and gathered partners at the clinic April 29, “is that it is absolutely the best story I get a chance to tell.”
“This team gets it done,” he said, “and gets it done in style.”
Some 15 men and women in the Guard have been stationed at the clinic at 27th and Prospect Avenue, many of them since early February, leading a vaccination operation in partnership with the community organizations on site.
Command Sgt. Maj. Jessica Settle of the Missouri Air National Guard, who came with Eaves to see the operation, praised the unit’s dedication and strong morale.
“You have been at this a long, long time, putting your boots on and putting your face on and getting your morale going every day,” Settle said.
“Carry these memories and treasure this mission,” she said. “You have given lives back — lives back.”
Both LINC Executive Vice President Janet Miles-Bartee and the Rev. Miles told the top commanders that working with the National Guard is “like family.”
The National Guard unit is specially trained to deliver vaccinations and manage many of the logistics with the state’s vaccination effort. LINC has provided support, helping with the logistics and the outreach. The Kansas City Fire Department provided paramedics to help increase capacity and the Church of Scientology has provided services for customers in the required waiting area immediately after they are vaccinated.
The clinic has delivered nearly 17,000 vaccinations, said Missouri Air National Guard Capt. Tony Rich, “which is just amazing.”
“It’s a testament to the partnership,” Rich said. “We’ve done it with a small, but mighty group.”
The Guard will remain at Morning Star through June. The team is also working with LINC and other community contacts to take vaccine operations into the community on special events to encourage more people to get vaccinated.
The experiences gained since February will last beyond the pandemic, Eaves said.
“One thing we can’t lose sight of with the pandemic we have lived through for 14 months now is the goodness that has come out of it,” Eaves said. “There are relationships here that will carry on.”
“Our state and our nation are hurting,” he added. “We have people who are hurting. We have people who are in a bad way, but what you all do is making a huge, huge difference.”
By Joe Robertson/LINC Write
Video edited by Bryan Shepard
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