BANGOR, Maine — Thursday was the last day the Cross Insurance Center in Bangor was administering doses for people who were scheduled for their second shot.
City of Bangor officials, police officers, and firefighters all showed up Thursday evening to cheer and congratulate the Northern Light Health staff members and volunteers who made the vaccination site happen.
"You have saved lives, over eight percent of people vaccinated in the state of Maine walked through these doors, ecstatic, happy, and living better than they came, so if they can be like everyone here without masks on, that is a tremendous effort," said Dr. James Jarvis from Eastern Maine Medical Center in Bangor.
Northern Light Health CEO Tim Dentry said nine months into the pandemic his team jumped to support and care for Mainers during the uncertain COVID times.
"We are once again adapting to the needs that we see so the reason why we are not doing is the demand is not there but that means we need to change our approach, we are making it more personal...we need to go to the people that haven't been vaccinated, we are in 34 schools right now, we have 129 sites including the one on Union Street," Dentry said.
For the past 16 weeks, Northern Light Health staff held more than 50 scheduled clinics, administered more than 100,000 doses of the vaccine, with about 600 clinical staff from the Northern Light hospitals.
These efforts would not have been possible without the 1,000 volunteers who donated their time to help Mainers get their covid shot quickly and effectively.
Each of the clinics had about 90-100 volunteers.
"Any time a community event has happened in Bangor, from the folk festival to the senior league world series, to this vaccination clinic, volunteers in this region have stepped up to make it happen," said Dan Tremble, city council chair for the City of Bangor. "I just want to thank each and every one of you to get us to a place where we will be able to get to a sense of normalcy."
