Communities for a New California (CNC) has been hard at work organizing and educating throughout the Coachella and Central Valleys with our COVID-19 education program, helping to register residents for their COVID-19 vaccination appointments, and working to address local housing concerns in each region. Here’s a closer look at what we’ve been doing this week to improve our neighborhoods:
Our first general community meeting was successfully held in Fresno to discuss issues local residents want to mobilize around and committees that they would like to see created. We also conducted our first Spanish-language general meeting to hear what residents had to say about their neighborhoods and what changes they would like to see in the city, with 100% of attendees pledging their participation to organize a committee dedicated to addressing housing issues in Fresno. As part of our COVID-19 Education Program, we have implemented a team of 10 canvassers going door-to-door educating about and registering families for their COVID-19 vaccination appointments, all while staying in accordance with all CDC COVID-19 safety guidelines. The team is steadily increasing the number of vaccination appointments they’ve made each day, with over 2,600 contacts made so far.
Similar efforts are currently underway throughout the Central Valley. Our Merced team has launched the Cali Calls program in conjunction with a team of canvassers to cover South Merced, educating individuals and families about the COVID-19 vaccination and continuing to help residents schedule their vaccination appointments. The team has dropped over 5,000 literature pieces educating about the vaccination process and are making more contacts every day.
Busy working hard on our COVID-19 Education Program, our Coachella team has made over 20,000 calls to educate about the safety of the vaccine and to assist residents on how to schedule their appointments. Additionally, our canvassers have delivered over 2,500 COVID-19 educational door hangers, and have given out nearly 13,000 face masks to residents. Beyond our COVID-19 Education Program, our organizers have been working to build power along with other local organizers to address housing concerns in the area, committing to a series of meetings to further discuss and address this issue.
The work of our communications department is complimenting all of our current fieldwork, with our COVID-19 education and outreach efforts spanning across radio, television, and social media channels. Our Subete la Manga Challenge is currently underway, which relies on community members to encourage others to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated.
