There's no uniform or national system for signing up to volunteer, and finding the right website for your area will take some sleuthing. Insider spoke with five volunteers from four states about how they found their appointments, the tasks they had to perform, and when in the process they received their shot. Jenny Howard, 34, took this photo after volunteering at a vaccination site in North Carolina. In some places, vaccinations are slow and shots remain scarce, especially for communities that have been affected the most. The barriers reflect the larger vaccine rollout, which has progressed haltingly and favored those who can smoothly navigate the labyrinth of state, county, and unofficial websites to find appointments. In many places, volunteers are not guaranteed vaccines, though there's a strong chance they could get a leftover dose when not enough people show up or some miss their appointments.Īs an additional challenge, these programs may favor people who can afford to spend a whole or a half-day away from work or who have childcare, reliable access to the internet, or other privileges that could exclude some other people from participating. States and counties can face overwhelming demand from people eager to score shots by volunteering rather than waiting months before they can get a vaccine. Far from cutting the line, health officials see offering vaccines to volunteers like Howard as an effective way to entice the dozens - and sometimes hundreds - of volunteers needed each day to run vaccination sites.īut information about such programs is not always clearly or broadly communicated to citizens, occasionally by design.

Howard is one of the thousands of younger and healthier people who have received their COVID-19 vaccine through volunteering at a vaccination site. 'I might have teared up a little bit,' Howard told Insider. After two volunteer shifts in two different counties, on February 25 she won 2021's version of a golden ticket: a Pfizer vaccine.

Howard, who is completing her graduate studies at Wake Forest University in North Carolina, did not yet qualify for a vaccine but wanted to participate in the effort to protect her neighbors. In late January, 34-year-old Jenny Howard got a hot tip from her friend: Two nearby county health departments had put out a call for volunteers at their vaccine sites.

Here's how you too can help and score the golden ticket of 2021: your COVID-19 shot.

And they're doing good in the process by helping vaccination sites run smoothly.

There's a legal way young and healthy people are getting COVID-19 shots and avoiding long waits.

Lumen field vaccination site