The clinic was the largest rural outreach program that the United States Department of Veterans Affairs has undertaken thus far, with 800 doses of the Pfizer vaccine on site for distribution.

“You can see it here, it is a pretty well-oiled machine where they are only on site for 20 minutes, 25 minutes tops,” said Sean Lindstrom, COVID-19 vaccine coordinator for the VA Western New York Health System. “We are able to flip these veterans through very quickly and receive a high number of patients through. What we heard on Friday was that this was going to be the largest rural outreach that the VA has ever done. Not VA Western New York, but the VA in general, which we are tremendously proud of. So thankful to be partnering with the folks here at the American Legion post to help us pull this off.”

The VA Western New York has been administering the vaccine to outpatient veterans since Jan. 12, beginning with those in high risk groups.

“As we were able to move through the stratification to younger and younger veterans we also wanted to get to our Southern Tier Veterans,” Lindstrom said. “So instead of having these folks take that one-and-a-half, two-hour drive up to Buffalo we wanted to bring the vaccine to them. It ultimately took approval from Washington to be able to redistribute the vaccine because of the cold storage chain process that the Pfizer vaccine requires, negative 70 degree storage, for us to be able to take that vaccine off site. So as soon as we were able to do that we made the plans to come here and partner with the Herman Kent American Legion Post to serve the veterans of the Southern Tier.”

A clinic recently held in Celoron.

Veterans were informed of the approximately 725 available appointments through phone calls and postcards, and were also contacted through their primary care providers.

“We were making outbound calls to them. We had folks in the evenings reaching out, we sent postcards out,” Lindstrom said. “We were able to fill this schedule in really a relatively short time.”

With 800 doses ready to be distributed, the clinic did also have the ability to vaccinate some additional veterans who would qualify but were perhaps not able to make an appointment.

Veterans of different ages were all on hand Sunday, including Joseph Brunacini of Jamestown.

“He is going to turn 101 on April 29,” said Joseph’s son William Brunacini. “He was a radio operator during World War II. My dad, you know for his age is absolutely amazing. He lives in unassisted living at the Carlson Towers in Jamestown. It was really no problem (coming here). My dad absolutely loves the VA, everything about them has been beneficial to him.”

P-J photo by Jay Young

Joseph Brunacini has not lost his sense of humor, as he joked with Steve Kriner of the Olean VA during his vaccination.

“Well it was a pleasure to be given the opportunity to come in and get a shot. I was going to tell them–pretend it was going to hurt,” he said.

Brunacini will return, along with many others, for the second dose of his vaccine on March 21.