17-year-old Noah Gascon is spearheading the initiative and says the link will provide information and resources along with directing individuals to experts.

Volunteers have also been giving their time at clinics in Quesnel and Terrace. St. John Ambulance says it will continue to volunteer at clinics over the coming weeks.

PinkCars.ca mobilizes volunteers with cars to help take the guesswork out of the vaccination process for seniors, helping them not only book their appointments online or over the phone but shuttle them to and from vaccination clinics throughout the year. Rides are available to seniors 70+.

Given the current rate of vaccines in York Region, the need for drivers is expected to surge come June as second dose appointments arrive.

Approximately 239 volunteers are working at mass immunization clinics across the region, who health officials say have put in more than 2,000 hours since the first site opened in Niagara Falls on March 18.

A new partnership will employ more than 1,400 tourism and hospitality workers in mass vaccination clinics — creating hundreds of jobs for B.C.’s hard-hit tourism, hospitality and sport sectors. Municipal venue owners are also helping operate some clinics with contributions of staff, furniture and supplies.

Beginning Monday, April 12 the Haliburton, Kawartha, Pine Ridge District Health Unit [HKPRDHU] will run clinics three times per week in Haliburton – on Sundays, Mondays and Thursdays. These clinics have been scheduled until mid-June and will run from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m.

While the on-site medical staff will be provided and scheduled by public health, there is still a “great need” for community volunteers to assist with tasks such as screening patients, escorting patients to their seats, cleaning and dismissing people after they have been given their vaccination.

We need your help to make sure that this unprecedented undertaking runs as smoothly as possible!

Volunteers must be residents of Huron-Perth.  Volunteers should be in good health, able to stand for a 3.5 hour shift, and able to wear a face mask. They will be provided with face masks, shields or goggles and given instructions before every shift. Please click on the city tab on your left in order to register as a volunteer. Do not forget to leave an email address so we can stay in touch. For more details on the volunteer roles and responsibilities  click here

The ability to run all of our mass immunization clinics across the region would not be possible without the help of all of our incredible volunteers, between the ages of 18 and 72, who have already put in over 2,000 hours at the clinics.

The response from the community has been truly inspiring. Due to the level of interest, they are no longer accepting applications at this time. If you would like to be contacted about volunteer opportunities that may become available at a later date, please complete the interest form. For other volunteer opportunities available in our community, check out the Volunteer Action Centre Waterloo Region.

A key part of the Vaccine Engagement Teams’ work is recruiting 280 resident ambassadors – local and trusted leaders in communities across the city, who have on-the-ground relationships and networks in the neighbourhoods where they work and live. These multi-lingual ambassadors will work with community agencies to reach out and make connections in their areas, and provide information about and connections to vaccination options. They will be trained by behavioural scientists on information about COVID-19 vaccines, common vaccine concerns and other COVID-19 risk reduction strategies, and will act as local contacts for residents.

This pilot combines trusted community ambassadors with local, accessible testing and on-site vaccination to get the word out, improve vaccine confidence and get people vaccinated. In fact, the City of Toronto’s newly announced COVID-19 Vaccine Engagement Teams Grants will build on this model. They will also be coordinating the vaccination efforts by leveraging the strength of our co-led community coordination tables that convene regional and municipal partners, and local community agencies, to understand needs on the ground and deliver a coordinated response.

A unique COVID-19 testing site took place in Halifax with the regular swabs and materials — plus interpretive services for more than 200 languages. The first asymptomatic testing event for newcomers to Canada took place, hosted by Nova Scotia Health and the province alongside groups like the Immigrant Services Association of Nova Scotia, YMCA and Halifax Refugee Clinic.

Almost everyone working at the sites is a volunteer, including the greeters, people at the registration desk, swabbers, and those who test the swabs and text out results are all volunteers. The rapid pop-up testing, relying on the help of non-experts, is the idea of Dr. Lisa Barrett, a Dalhousie University infectious disease specialist, physician, and researcher. There are about 1,500 volunteers on the list to help just at the downtown Halifax site, and these are happening all over NS.

Volunteer Toronto is committed to enabling COVID-19 vaccinations with the support of volunteers in a safe, ethical and efficient manner. The safety of volunteers, and the clients they assist, is our number one priority. This news item will be updated as more information becomes available.

Are you an organization interested in engaging volunteers for vaccination support? Email subscribe@volunteertoronto.ca

Are you interested in supporting vaccination related efforts as a volunteer? Do you have healthcare experience? Sign up for our mailing list and be the first to hear about opportunities as they arise:

Transportation options are available to people with disabilities, those 55 years old and older, and others who are frail or have underlying conditions which make them at greater risk from COVID-19 and/or render them unable to safely access other modes of transportation.

This program is intended for those who have no other options for transportation to vaccination appointments.

Health Commons has been working with partners in Toronto and Central Region communities hardest hit by COVID-19 to better understand the role of local response strategies as part of the recovery effort

Interviews with over 100 residents and community organizations offer insights about what’s driving the high rates of transmission in ‘hotspot’ communities and how healthcare partners can help This proposal outlines a proposed model for community-based COVID-19 response, including an integrated approach to testing that could be piloted in hotspot communities Core elements of the model were designed with the community.

Also known as  ”public homeplaces,” these third spaces, create  multiple  opportunities for dialogue, skill-sharing, and art-making between  people of different socio-economic backgrounds, ages, cultures and abilities. Prior to COVID, Concordia was home to three buzzing Art Hives — spaces that facilitate connectivity and creative expression. The concept has now been taken online

PCP is a network consisting of 400 municipalities nationally that strive to take climate action by reducing greenhouse gas emissions.

If the intention is to vaccinate the highest risk neighbourhoods first, then there is a need for more real-time, dynamic prioritization. This requires some understanding of a neighbourhood’s propensity for COVID infections (based on cumulative cases per capita), as well the degree of protection it has from the virus (percent of residents vaccinated). Scatterplots are included. The best use of an incremental dose of available vaccine is in moving postal codes in the upper left to the right as quickly as possible. That will avoid the most infections, hospitalizations, and deaths. As new data are released by ICES each week, the blog will be updated to help track these moving targets.

A festival that celebrates social proximity in times of physical distance and reclaims the role of cities, places and people to shape a post-covid world for the better. AfterCovid.City is a hybrid distributed festival from Barcelona to Europe and beyond. A co-created charter on public space for recovery, powered by Barcelona and the other partner cities and institutions.

A place for discussion, collaboration and learning where we can shape possible futures together.

50+ roundtables, webinars and conferences.

A global research about public space and cities during covid.

A new pop-up park is taking root downtown! Enjoy the fresh spring air at Root 107 – an inclusive public space filled with colourful mural art, greenery, and unique seating areas made from recycled materials. Grab some takeout at one of the neighbouring restaurants or food trucks and enjoy in the sunshine!

The Parkdale Neighbourhood Land Trust (PNLT) and the Vancity Community Investment Bank (VCIB) today announced the acquisition of an at-risk low-rent residential building containing 36 apartments in Parkdale, Toronto in an effort to help protect the area’s affordable rental stock. With this acquisition the land trust has grown its community ownership in the area from 15 to 51 units of affordable rental housing – equivalent to a 240% increase.

Hubs of Innovation: A playbook for place leaders was created in collaboration with the UK Innovation Districts Group, with research led by The Business of Cities and is designed for place-leaders, anchor institutions and larger stakeholders who play key roles in the innovation sector. The report provides guidance to those at different stages of maturity in developing innovation hubs and draws on best practices from existing hubs such as MediaCityUK in Salford, the Belfast Innovation District, Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park in East London and the Knowledge Quarter in Liverpool.

The City will introduce pilot projects that will pave the way for responding to the thousands of mental health-related crisis calls in Toronto. https://www.thestar.com/news/gta/2021/04/25/toronto-approved-non-police-crisis-response-teams-this-woman-is-trying-to-build-them.html