Volunteers Bring Coronavirus Testing To Dallas' Southern Sector: 'It's Our Civic And Moral Responsibility'
Texas Expanding Coronavirus Testing In 'Underserved Communities Disproportionately Impacted'
DALLAS (CBSDFW.COM) - Dallas' southern sector is seeing some of the highest number of COVID-19 cases in Dallas County.
Volunteer Alisha Trusty is part of a major effort to bring testing to that area.
"Often people who reside in this area are already lacking health care, lacking access to resources," she said. "It was important that we bring the resources and the testing to them."
At Friendship-West Baptist Church's Kiest Blvd. location, the program "Together We Test" launched Thursday morning.
Project Unity, a faith-based nonprofit that works to build and sustain communities, brought community leaders, churches and medical professionals together to make this happen.
The program provides free COVID-19 and COVID-19 antibody tests.
They have the capability of administering 250 of each test per day. They say people should be in and out within 30 minutes.
"I just believe that the faith community is a vehicle in which we can galvanize and get more people tested," Project Unity Founder Richie Butler said.
"There are those in the community who have said to me that I'm not going to those institutions out there because we don't trust them, but we do trust the church," Senior Pastor of Friendship-West Baptist Church Frederick Haynes said. "The least we can do locally is take this into our own hands by joining hands."
"It's our civic and moral responsibility," Trusty said.
In the coming weeks, Together We Test plans to expand testing to five churches in the area.
Each will offer testing one day a week for the foreseeable future.