Sherburne County Wellness Van Hits the Road for COVID-19 Vaccinations, Public Assistance Programs

(KNSI) – Sherburne County Health and Human Services’ wellness van is up and running, delivering COVID-19 vaccines to locations around the county.

The van, paid for mostly through CARES Act funding, has been used to bring COVID-19 vaccines to worksites and other locations within communities. Sherburne County HHS Director Amanda Larson says vaccinations have been the van’s primary purpose since the department started using it in March.

“We’ve been doing work sites, so we did McDonald’s Meats and Sysco Foods,” Larson said. “Now that we’ve kind of gotten over the big hump of folks that wanted to get vaccinated, we’ve really been able to use it for much smaller, targeted events.”

Vaccination opportunities like that are coming up soon, Larson mentioned: The van will be on-site at the Becker Fire Department from 9 to 11 a.m. Saturday, May 22 and at Liberty Elementary in Big Lake from 3 to 6 p.m. Tuesday, May 25.

Sherburne County has one of the lowest COVID vaccination rates among adults in the state; the MDH says almost 30,000 people — 41 percent of the county’s 16 and older population — have received at least one vaccine dose. Larson says HHS is trying to figure out why the county’s vaccination rate is low and how the van could address that.

So far, Larson says around 270 vaccine doses have been administered at events using the wellness van.

The county also uses the van to bring public assistance services to St. Cloud twice a month. On the second Wednesday of the month, the van will be parked at Talahi Community School from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. with staff there who can help people apply for or maintain public assistance. On the fourth Wednesday of the month, the van will be at CashWise East on Fourth Street SE from 9:30 a.m. to 3 p.m. Appointments are not needed.

Larson says the visits can benefit Sherburne County residents who live in St. Cloud and have difficulty getting to the county’s offices in Elk River.

“We’ve only been out in the community once so far for that, but I think as that gets more advertised, I think that’s going to have a tremendous impact,” Larson said. “We recognize a huge barrier to accessing services is transportation. If we can bring the services to people versus always expecting the people to come in to get services, especially when those services are 35 miles away in the opposite direction, I think that that’s going to have a large impact.”

Staff also have a system in place where they track the needs and suggestions of community members to see how the van can meet those needs in the future, Larson said.

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