LAKE COUNTY — The Lake County Office of Education was awarded a grant at the beginning of January 2021 to work with the Latinx communities as it pertains to COVID-19.
The grant amount is for $192,000 and will go through to November 4, 2022. This grant is part of the Public Health Division’s emergency response to the coronavirus pandemic.
The two Project Coordinators for this are Lake County Office of Education’s Healthy Start Director Ana Santana and Local Child Care Planning Council (LCCPC) Coordinator Angela Cuellar-Marroquin.
“We felt that our presence and our deep roots in Lake County would be the best way to do the work of this grant. We want our Latinx Community to thrive and to recover from this pandemic!” Santana said.
To help them do their work on this grant they will have two other Office of Education Healthy Start Staff and a Lake County Quality Counts Employee.
“The most important message we are working on getting out is that our Latinx Community has the highest number of COVID-19 positive cases in the County, that together we can stop the spread of COVID-19,” Cuellar-Marroquin said.
The grant is looking for individuals to work within Latinx Communities to build trust, learn about pressing issues, prevent new COVID-19 infections within the Latinx Community and reduce COVID-19 transmission in the county.
Cuellar-Marroquin said they plan to address these grant requirements by doing outreach, educate, share on social media, go out into the community safely and distribute literature and share information as they receive it in relation to COVID-19.
“Ana and I love our community and we have been here all of our lives, our Latinx community has grown and we want to help support the efforts of Public Health to stop the spread,” Cuellar-Marroquin said.
Vaccinations are in Lake County. Cuellar-Marroquin said they want to make sure the Latinx Community understands how the tier system works, where to go to get tested and vaccinated, where resources are and how they can best be supported during their time of quarantine.
“With the vaccine rollout we are supporting where needed to ensure that our agriculture working community is informed and educated about the vaccine,” she added. “We are the voice at the table in the conversation around vaccines, testing, and support with resources if testing positive. We are the eyes and ears of the LatinX community, so we are trying to break the myths around the virus, testing, and vaccination.”
Brock Falkenberg, Lake County Superintendent of Schools said, “I need to thank Lake County Public Health Department. They have been exemplary in their support for schools, children and the community through this entire process.”
