By TANYA HOLLAND
Los Alamos

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you about an encouraging event that happened this week.

I am the operations manager at Oppenheimer Place Condominiums. This is a 55 and older community, but most of the residents are in their 70s and 80s. COVID has been a very stressful time for all of us. We certainly have been on a large learning curve with very fluid information.

I had been communicating with Beverly Simpson, the emergency manager in Los Alamos about setting up a vaccination clinic at our building. I found her to be knowledgeable, accessible, and helpful. It is so nice to call or email someone and to hear back from them.

On Monday, after the clinic at the gym, I got a phone call from Beverly. She told me they had around 50 extra vaccines that did not get used. She asked if I could get residents together on such short notice. I readily agreed and started making phone calls. Within 20 minutes Beverly and Kevin Aicher, a nurse for the DOH, had set up a clinic in our Dining Room.

I was really blown away by these two individuals. They were so kind and caring. The thing that amazed me was that they had started working at 7 a.m. that morning and didn’t leave our building until 8 p.m. that night. I had heard reports about states throwing out large doses of the vaccine because they didn’t have enough people scheduled.

These two understand how precious each dose is, and because of that, we were able to use all of them. I believe they went above and beyond what was required of them, and the residents here are so grateful.

This has been a long year full of fear and uncertainty. Beverly and Kevin were able to make people in this building feel like they matter.