How San Antonio’s Meals on Wheels Connects Seniors to Vaccines
A pilot program seeks ways to get more seniors and people who receive in-home care vaccinated.
Updated COVID-19 and flu vaccines will soon be available. For health workers who provide vaccine outreach and education to their communities, older adults continue to be a priority population.
With most of the United States experiencing a COVID-19 summer surge, vaccine protection is key. Yet health workers are working to find new options for free vaccines for under- and uninsured adults as the Bridge Access Program is set to end in August.
To learn more about the ways CBOs are collaborating to get their communities vaccinated, Public Good News spoke with Meals on Wheels San Antonio’s Ariana Barbour, Daniel Garcia, and Jillian Huskin. They highlighted a recent pilot program they ran to help increase vaccine access for seniors and people who receive in-home care.
Here’s what they said.
PGN: What is the mission of Meals on Wheels, and who does it serve?
Ariana Barbour: We’re here to basically ensure the health, happiness, and safety of our clients in their home.
Meals on Wheels San Antonio provides nutritious meals, friendly visits, and safety checks. That’s the core of what we do, but the support services help to elevate those things across the board. Services like AniMeals that makes sure that their furry family members have food; Friendly Visitor, that lets them know that somebody’s there and cares about them; and through Comfy Casas, which provides tools and [accommodations] within their homes to make sure that they are safe.
Oftentimes, people are somewhat surprised that it really is more than a meal.
Daniel Garcia: We serve Bexar County and the surrounding counties. We deliver all the way to the valley.
A typical client is female, in her 70s, lives alone and is of medium to lower income. We do have a good representation between different ethnicities and races, between white, Hispanic, African American. Obviously, we have a lot of Hispanic folks in South Texas, but the senior population that we see definitely is not a monolith.
There are a lot of different walks of life. Meals on Wheels is synonymous with seniors, but we have plenty of folks that are under the age of 60 that also meet our eligibility requirements. Whether it be for the homebound status, the isolation, or the need for assistance in leaving their home.
PGN: How did Meals on Wheels San Antonio start helping seniors and homebound folks get vaccinated?
D.G.: When COVID-19 first started and everybody was in lockdown, for a brief moment in history, everybody experienced what some of our clients experience. They experienced the isolation, they experienced the lockdown, they experienced the homebound status. They couldn’t leave their homes.
Those in public health definitely saw that the senior population, and on top of that, the homebound population was very vulnerable to this disease, and they wanted to make sure that somehow, someway, those folks got to the top of the list of getting those initial vaccines.
And so it was through the fire department, Metro Health, with a couple of different partners, [who] worked together to get a lot of our clients the COVID-19 vaccine when it first came out.
PGN: Can you share more about the vaccine program you piloted earlier this spring?
D.G.: We worked with a subcommittee of a homebound immunization coalition that included partners like Metro Health. The subcommittee was trying to figure out how they could get immunizations to the most vulnerable populations that were underrepresented in their immunization numbers. So, around February or March of 2024, when I heard that the subcommittee was building this thing from the ground up, we jumped at the opportunity to get involved.
The pilot took a small random sample—700 of our clients—that we then notified through a robocall, letting them know they had been chosen to be part of the program. If they were interested in receiving homebound vaccination, they would give us a call back. We logged their information, and then that list was brought to the subcommittee so that they could disperse it among the partners and look at serving those clients.
The subcommittee also looked at all the logistical components that they were going to have to put in place, like funding. Who is going to pay for the shots? That’s the first thing. The second thing was who is going to physically put shots in arms? Do we have the partners and things to do that? And then, how are we going to follow up with that, you know? Because they wanted this to continue.
The hope is that this turns into an annual, recurring effort right around flu season. The subcommittee is also looking to offer boosters, RSV, pneumonia, vaccinations for shingles—those main needs that the senior population has as well as meeting the needs of people who are homebound and bringing those vaccines to them.
PGN.: What have you learned from the pilot? Any takeaways you can share?
D.G.: I expected a larger percentage to respond, and I’m not quite sure yet why it seemed a little low, but out of the folks that responded, what we saw was that there was interest in multiple vaccines. Many of them wanted a full spectrum: RSV, shingles, pneumonia.
One of the variables that the subcommittee was trying to get a better understanding of was why somebody in the community was not getting vaccinated regularly. Whether it be an attitude, a perception, or a mentality of some kind that vaccines were ineffective or not important.
More people haven’t stayed up to date with their vaccines. Maybe there’s not a sense of urgency.
A lot of times, folks have to be educated on what the consequences are.
A.B.: Perhaps in the future, if we were going to do this again, or focus on another segment of the population we serve, maybe providing a little bit of education ahead of time to the selected group would see some increases in responses. Sometimes, even if people don’t take us up on what we’re trying to provide, they will say, ‘Thank you for remembering me. Thank you for caring and letting me know and sharing this information.’
PGN: What would you like others to know about reaching out or collaborating with your organization?
D.G.: For me, no agency is an island. There are some huge agencies in South Texas that seem like they operate on their own, but, when you get down to the details, you need partners to fulfill your role. I think collaboration is key.
Jill Huskin: Yeah, especially meeting face to face with other agencies—it’s so beneficial to just share about what we do and hear what they do.
It really helps us have a better understanding of how their processes work, what programs they have, and what eligibility requirements they have. If we refer a client to them for one of their programs, we want to make sure it’s a warm referral.
PGN: What advice would you give community health workers or others who serve seniors or people who receive in-home care?
D.G.: No matter the agency or how good their service is, if it is not accessible to the homebound client, it might as well not exist. Whether they are a senior, or someone under 60, like I said before, who are also homebound, meet them where they’re at so that they can get that service or sign up for your application process.
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This article first appeared on Public Good News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.