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10 Illinois National Guard Soldiers and Airmen working with the East St. Louis Health Department’s COVID-19 immunization program dedicate long hours each day to protect the health of the community’s residents by administering life-saving COVID-19 vaccines.
So what do these troops do in their spare time? At least one group of troops protect the health of the community’s residents, this time by dedicating many honors to the F.R.E.S.H. Community Training Garden in East St. Louis, Illinois.
“I enjoy community work,” said Illinois Army National Guard Spc. Jonnie Sorenson, a small arms artillery repair technician from Creve Core, Illinois. “The community helps with the mission and I wanted to give back. Plus, I get to learn a lot of techniques about gardening.”
9 ROCK ISLAND ARSENAL, Illinois – Members of the Illinois National Guard are no stranger to deployments. Many have seen multiple combat tours during the last 20 years, taking them to overseas theaters and far from friends and families.
Their latest mission, however, brings the enemy to their own backyards, with their loved ones in the line of fire. The stakes are high, and they are engaging without reservation.
These “backyard battlefields” are local COVID-19 immunization sites set up across Illinois by state and local health officials in an effort to ramp up the timeframe for vaccinating residents against COVID-19.
While the spaces and vaccines are ample, staffing the sites has been an obstacle in the roll-out. That’s where the National Guard has been able to step up and partner with local health officials to ensure a streamlined and logistically sound process to optimize the speed and efficacy of vaccine distribution.