Mahalo to Hawaii Pacific Health COVID-19 VAX SQUAD at Pearl City High School

Mahalo to Hawaii Pacific health for providing free COVID-19 vaccinations today for Pearl City High School staff, teachers, student, family and community walk-ins at the Pearl City Cultural Center. HPH healthcare professionals are a true blessing and greatly appreciated in our Pearl City community and other communities that they serve through their COVID-19 VAX SQUAD BUS operation.

I would like to extend a mahalo to HPH Director of Workforce Development, Carl Hinson for his assistance. Also, to Sgt. Chane I Umeno from the Hawaii Army National Guard, and to all the Pearl City High School Healthcare Academy student volunteers.

A very special mahalo to PCHS Principal Joseph Halfmann for the opportunity to cover today’s vaccination event and for his comments below:

Joseph Halfmann, Principal, Pearl City High School

“We’ve been super happy to be able do our part and partner with Hawaii Pacific Health. Number one is to make sure that our students and staff are all vaccinated. We want to get back to school next year as close to normal as possible, and we think that this is a big step for that. But also secondarily, we love to do our part for the Pearl City community, everybody’s welcome. We’ve been getting walk-ins and so we really hope that it’s comfortable and convenient for everybody who’s ready to get their vaccination to come on out.

Today happened really quickly because we have a great partnership with Hawaii Pacific Health through our Health Academies. A lot our Health Academy students are medical assist or nurse assistant students and Hawaii Pacific Health is a big partner for that. When they stepped up and said hey, we have this plan to have a vaccination bus, we jumped on board with Waipahu High School, with Campbell, Kapolei and some of the early adapters, and said we absolutely want to make this happen and it’s been pretty smooth. Hawaii Pacific Health is a great partner and they have it all worked out. All we need to do is make sure we have a few people to help out and get word out.

This has been great for our staff and students. For me, I like having our students and staff involved in serving the community. Our Health Academy students with their orange shirts are here greeting and making sure everything’s going smoothly and taking part in it, that’s kind of their future. They’re really interested in a healthcare future and it’s a great partnership and opportunity for them to learn through this type of service. This has been wonderful.”

Today’s COVID-19 vaccinations runs from 9:30am to 4:30pm at the Pearl City Cultural Center