KETTERING — Wednesday, Kettering City Schools teamed up with Rite Aid to host a COVID-19 vaccine clinic for students 12-and-up at Fairmont High School.
The cafeteria at Fairmont became a vaccine clinic from 1:00 to 5:00.
Emily Bunts was there to get her 16-year-old son and Fairmont sophomore his Pfizer booster shot.
“For us it’s been a relief,” Bunts said. “He’s the last one in the family who’s completed the cycle, I guess you would call it. So we’re pretty excited about it.”
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Spencer Neal is 13 and a student at Van Buren Middle School. She was there with her mom to get her first Pfizer dose.
“It was just like any normal shot I guess,” Neal said. “It was cool though because I’m one step closer to being immune, so that’s good.”
Rite Aid was running the clinic along with the school district. News Center 7 asked the company’s Dayton-area pharmacy leader whether they’ve noticed an impact on demand at their vaccine clinics from Ohio’s Vax-a-Million program?
“Definitely since that was announced, we have seen an uptick over the past couple of days,” Adam Guzik with Rite Aid said. “So it’s exciting. Just more encouragement for people to get the vaccine.”
News Center 7′s John Bedell took that same question to families at the vaccine clinic in Kettering Wednesday. He asked families: “Ohio’s vax a million program. Whether it’s the million dollar drawing or this full-ride college scholarship. Has that had any impact on your family getting motivated to get a shot?”
Jordan Neal said: “Oh, absolutely not,” as she was there to get her 13-year-old daughter, Spencer her first shot. “This is a health decision we had made a while ago and we were anxiously awaiting the release of the vaccines and we got them as soon as we could.”
Erin O’Neill from Kettering was here to get his son his first Pfizer dose and answered: “It did not impact our decision to get a shot because we were already planning on getting one.”
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Finally, Bunts said: “It has not. We were firm believers prior to that. I think it’s a wonderful thing the governor is doing to increase of getting this out there so we can hopefully get to a point where we are able to get back to some normalcy.”
Even though those three parents told WHIO the Vax-a-Million program did not impact their decision to get a shot, Bunts and O’Neill said they will be entering their families into the million dollar and college scholarship drawings now that they’re vaccinated.
“It’s on my list to do today,” Bunts said. “We’ll get to it. For both of course, I have another son at home too. So we would love that. It’d be awesome.”
O’Neill added, “Both (drawings). I figure the odds are better than the lottery so … it’s a nice little bonus, chance at least.”