CLEVELAND — As the Wolstein Center at Cleveland State University begins mass vaccinations, community organizations are doing their part to get the word out to those living in the Greater Cleveland area.
For the last 40-plus years, Pastor Larry Macon Sr. has been preaching in Cleveland.
“Our church had grown from a little small family church to one of the larger churches in the Greater Cleveland area,” Macon said.
And in 2020, the pastor at the Mount Zion of Oakwood Village church had to make some serious changes to services.
“We are created to be social beings, and now we can’t even touch people, love on people the way we’ve been used to loving on people, greeting folks, greeting kids and grandmas. We can’t do that anymore and that really, for me, was the greatest challenge,” he said.
He also knows the toll the coronavirus pandemic has had on minority communities.
“I have seen so many funerals that have occurred inside of our community. We read the statistics and we know the statistics that there is a disproportionate number of African American, Black and brown folk in the Greater Cleveland area who have been impacted by the COVID,” Macon said.
Macon serves as the president of United Pastors, one of the hundreds of organizations helping with outreach to get people registered for the vaccine, which Macon said will help bridge the gap between the government and people.
“Selecting the site is one thing. But understanding what the community needs are and how the community will react to going downtown, which a lot of people have stopped doing, could be a challenge,” Macon said.
Macon has already been vaccinated and continues to post flyers and advocate for more vaccination pods outside the Wolstein Center. He hopes this will get his community closer to beating the pandemic.
“I’m praying that all of my congregates and community gets this vaccine ASAP so we can return to at least some level of normalcy,” he said.
Other organizations involved in outreach include the NAACP and the Urban League of Greater Cleveland.
