Community event provides vaccine access to refugee families and experience for nursing students
A community event in Thornton on Friday offered an opportunity for refugee families from Afghanistan to get needed vaccines.
"They will be nervous but I think they will be fine," Farid Stanikzai said.
He's helping six-year-old, Hafsa and her sister seven-year-old, Hajira, and their family navigate life in the U.S.
Because of their father's work, they were forced to flee their home.
"They were there because they were happy, back there they wanted to help their country their people but the regime collapsed and because of their affiliation with the U.S. government they were not safe for them to stay," he said.
The girls are now going to school in Adams County and need of required vaccinations, but accessing them can be difficult for refugee families.
"Most of the families the fathers are working and some of the females they cannot drive they cannot get to those appointments and stuff like that," he said.
The community event at Thornton High School gave them and hundreds of other families one less thing to worry about.
The district provided transportation and Regis University was on hand to administer free vaccines for the kids and their parents.
"We have flu shot we have pneumonia vaccines the COVID vaccine," Kellan Covey said.
He's in his first year as a pharmacy student at the university.
"Being in the community and assisting definitely does help you get a good expectation of what people are like what they need and what's going to be required of you in the future," he said.
His day was spent helping prepare the vaccines to calm the fears of the little ones lining up.
"The majority came here ready some of us came prepared with different costumes," he said.
An experience he knew he wouldn't get in the classroom, and despite the work put in beforehand realized as Hafsa burst into tears, the result isn't always one you can prepare for.
