Image by Vector Media
A CT Transit bus with an Our Humanity ad.
New Haveners looking for information about Covid testing and vaccination sites can now stop by any of the New Haven Fire Department’s (NHFD) ten firehouses for help.
The NHFD is partnering with the city and local nonprofit, URU The Right to Be, Inc, to bring a nationwide Covid-19 prevention initiative called Our Humanity to New Haven urging residents to get vaccinated.
Maya McFadden Photo
English and Spanish banners outside the Grand Ave fire house headquarters.
The NHFD’s ten fire stations serve as community hubs to provide information.
Organizers of the project gathered at the NHFD headquarters on Grand Avenue Wednesday to kick off the campaign with two banners on the front of the firehouse. Banners in English and Spanish will be put on all ten fire stations.
The initiative targets Black, Hispanic and Indigenous communities, which have shown hesitancy about the vaccine since its rollout due to safety concerns.
Crystal Emery: This is an effort to prevent illness and death.
URU founder Crystal R. Emery said her father was a firefighter. “The greatest moments of my life have taken place here in New Haven, and they have been attached to the firehouses,” she said.
Emery grew up having dinners at her father’s firehouse and having firefighters come to her family cookouts. “Firemen don’t just put out fires,” she said.
Now New Haven’s fire stations will offer the community with a space to get local resources to fight against Covid.
The campaign’s banners will also pop up on CT transit buses, at street corners and at bus stops.
“Because 84 percent of our workload is medical we’ve seen what this virus has done to our community,” Fire Chief John Alston Jr. said.
Our Humanity Director Meredith Benson, Emery, and Chief John Alston Jr.
The campaign is also taking the message to churches across the state to offer life-saving efforts.
“Everybody, I don’t care who you are, you have to get vaccinated,” said Emery.
Emery’s message to people of color who are hesitant to get the vaccine because of distrust in the medical field from current and historical events like the Tuskegee Syphilis Study is remember that “before we weren’t at the table. But now we are. You can trust it. It will save our lives.”
URU team at Wednesday’s event.
Housing Authority of New Haven CEO Karen DuBois-Walton joined the gathering Wednesday as a member of the initiative committee. DuBois-Walton said she plans to bring the initiative to housing developments around the city soon.
The Beulah Heights First Pentecostal Church will host a vaccination clinic on March 17 in partnership with the campaign.
“Everyone doesn’t have a cellphone or computer, but everyone in New Haven has a firehouse they can depend on,” said Alston.
City Announces COVID-19 Prevention Program with NHFD and URU The Right To Be, Inc.
Posted by New Haven Independent on Wednesday, March 10, 2021
84% of the Fire Department's workload is medical, yet firefighters are not required to be paramedics and drive fire trucks, not ambulances, to medical calls. If NHFD drove ambulances rather than fire trucks, they could charge for medical services and likely generate at least five million dollars in revenue. (Branford generates $2 million, Guilford $1 million.)