Anonymous Broadway Actor Doing His Part To Help Others By Providing COVID Vaccine Updates For New Jerseyans
NEW YORK (CBSNewYork) -- A Broadway actor is trying to make life a little easier for those struggling to get the COVID vaccine.
Even in masks, their smiles and their stickers tell a story of success.
"You just want to see them be able to have this be over with for them and feel like they're safe," Joe DeRosa said.
DeRosa is celebrating a vaccination victory for his parents. The Ocean County couple couldn't get an appointment, so like thousands of others, their son turned to the Twitter account VaxxUpdates for guidance.
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The man behind the account has been anonymously working to help patients secure slots in New Jersey.
"You are helping so many people. Why do you not want your face or your name to be out there?" CBS2's Jessica Layton asked.
"It's just important that it stays true to the message, which again to get eligible New Jerseyans vaccinated as soon possible," he said.
It's a mission born out of the frustration of trying to first help older family members.
"The process is just super confusing. Every county's different. It was a bit of a mess," the man said. "There's no centralized information."
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He constantly keeps tabs on about 40 different websites and tweets up-to-the-minute information, like which centers are open and which have appointments available.
"Out of the four weeks that I've been around now, we have gotten over 4,000 appointments for eligible New Jerseyans," he said.
The mystery man is an actor on hiatus, using his free time to not only make the vaccination process easier, but to highlight his colleagues who are out of work while the lights are dim on Broadway.
"We want to get all of us back into work," he said. "It's important that everybody gets vaccinated as soon as they can, right, because we want to get this country back on track."
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It's not a role he ever imagined, but he's proud to do his part in the pandemic.
He's asking people to pay his help forward by making a donation to the Actor's Fund. You can donate by visiting actorsfund.org/donate.
CBS2's Jessica Layton contributed to this report.