Lane County recognizes St. Vincent de Paul, Public Health Reserve Corps

Presenter: St. Vincent de Paul steps up to administer the Public Health Reserve Corps. Recognizing the volunteers and those who make it happen, on May 12, Lane County Administrator Steve Mokrohisky:

Steve Mokrohisky (Lane County): We’re very pleased today to recognize our Public Health Reserve Corps and our partners at St. Vincent de Paul, who are taking on the program so that it can continue to benefit our community.

You, I’m sure are aware and well familiar with this group of incredible volunteers and the role that Lane County has historically had in running this program.

So I want to just introduce the folks who are here. , Jesus Leon Monsalve, who goes by Nao. Nao is here. , Dr. Fran Munkenbeck is here, and Connie Sullivan is here at the table. Eduardo Tapia, Jack Boisen and (Cayetana) Caye Gomez (de Soler) is also here at the table. Brian Hynd is here, and then, Alan Roth and Bethany Cartledge, were not able to be here, but wanted to recognize them. 

So, I have a few comments, and then I’d like to ask Kachina to say some words as well. 

The Reserve Corps is a team of trained volunteers and professionals who respond to natural disasters, public health emergencies, or mass casualty incidents throughout Lane County. Volunteers with the program have supported the medical community during communicable disease outbreaks like pertussis. They’ve helped support sheltering efforts during the 2024 winter storm and of course the wildfires of 2023.

The Reserve Corps was formed after COVID as a Medical Reserve Corps local unit part of the State Emergency Registry of Volunteers in Oregon (that is ‘SERV-OR,’ is the acronym), helping the public health emergencies and in disasters in Lane County. Volunteers were critical to our ability to conduct mass vaccination clinics and support underserved communities during the pandemic.

We, of course, all remember the incredible operation of our mass vaccination clinics, primarily at the Lane Event Center, that were done, and we could not have done it without the Volunteer Corps.

Formalizing that role with the Reserve Corps was the next logical step, and as the board remembers, it was funded for two years with grant funding from 2023 to 2024. And then the intent was—y’all remember the EPA grant of $20 million that we had been awarded—the intent was to continue to fund the program with those EPA grant dollars.

Unfortunately, the current administration failed to honor that promise, and so we had to regroup and identify a solution, given the fact that we didn’t have the funding in Lane County to do that.

So thankfully our partners at St. Vincent de Paul—incredible partners in our community that seem to just step up anytime there is a great need in the community—our partners at St. Vincent de Paul also saw the great value of this Reserve Corps and this program. They stepped up to continue the Public Health Reserve Corps as part of their organization.

And actually I think a wonderful part of the story because we had to end our program and we had two employees that were with us. These two employees—Caye being one—were able to transition over to St. Vincent de Paul and continue their great work with the program. So they now support the Reserve Corps for St. Vincent de Paul.

St. Vincent de Paul has received funding from the Oregon Health Authority public health modernization funding to support this program. And we’re just so pleased that we’ve been able to find a positive resolution to this and continue the incredible work.

And we want to recognize both the contributions and support of St. Vincent de Paul, as well as the individuals who volunteer and do this incredible work in our community.

Their work goes unsung, like so many heroes in the community who do work on a volunteer level, who aren’t getting paid for this, but they care passionately about serving people in need in our community during the most challenging and needed times.

And so our special thanks to St. Vincent de Paul and to these volunteers, and I want to turn it over to Kachina to add any comments.

Presenter: Assistant Director of Lane County Health and Human Services Kachina Inman:

Kachina Inman (Lane County): Great. Thank you. Good morning Just really honored to be here with our partners in the community today.

I think Steve just did a beautiful job telling the Public Health Reserve story. And it was sad that we could not keep this within the county and again, kudos to Jack and Bethany and St. Vincent de Paul for leaning in and finding a solution. This is a needed program for our community.

We know during those emergency situations, having that volunteer base, a trained and educated, highly effective group of folks that have trusted relationships in the community too is so essential and so we’re thrilled that it can continue.

We were so sad to lose Caye (Gomez) and also so excited for her leadership to continue with St. Vincent de Paul running this program. And then Connie (Sullivan) who was a staff member for years and years at Public Health, who is now in her retirement stepping up.

So the stories of each of our volunteers are unique and powerful. These are just a handful of our volunteers here today and just really grateful for the way they show up in our community. And we know that we will continue that partnership in working together to really support the needs of our community.

And I just want to turn it over to Connie and Caye to share a few words as well. Thank you.

Presenter: Connie Sullivan:

Connie Sullivan (Public Health Reserve Corps): I think mostly it’s been said very well by both of you what we do. And we’re all pretty self-motivated because we were in limbo for several months here, but everyone stepped up in the meantime when we were figuring out what we were going to do to try to continue our operations.

We were very grateful for all the help that we got, the support from H&HS (Health and Human Services), particularly you, Kachina, and up till Jocelyn Warren’s very last day of work, she was working behind the scenes to help make arrangements. And Brian Johnson stepped in, and Selene Jaramillo, so lots of support from Lane County up through the very end.

And also grateful for St. Vincent’s because we fit in very well with their mission, also, and we see it as an opportunity to help strengthen some emergency support measures or emergency preparedness measures within their organization, which we’re so happy to be part of.

And we still do public health! It’s always going to be public health and it’s really nice that St. Vincent’s is able to support that as well, so thank you.

Presenter: Caye Gomez:

Caye Gomez (Public Health Reserve Corps): Good morning, Commissioners. First I would like to express my gratitude to Lane County Public Health that initially housed and supported us. Your early commitment gave this project the foundation to grow. And to St. Vincent de Paul, thank you for believing in the vision of the medical reserve corps and for helping bring it into its new chapter.

But most importantly, I would like to recognize our volunteers, some of them present here, because during times of uncertainty they remain engaged, and patient and committed. And your dedication, it’s what really sustained this effort and makes today possible. We are truly, truly grateful for each one of you and the role you play in bringing the medical reserve corps to what is it today. Thank you.

Presenter: Commissioner Pat Farr:

Commissioner Pat Farr: I’ll say a few words of thanks. You know, it is always amazing to me, the talent that is attracted to St. Vincent de Paul and their mission. And when I see you sitting here, your current work brings into play all of the work you’ve done to this point.

And so often the people who are working at St. Vincent de Paul are the very tip of the talent pool. And I really appreciate that you’re volunteering after retirement and that St. Vincent de Paul is your new home, It’s a wonderful place to be.

I’d love to point out all the volunteers that are sitting here in the room, but I’m going to point out Jack in particular— Jack Boisen. I see Jack at least once a month right here at this table. Jack is a nonvoting member of our Poverty and Homelessness Board, plus a great deal of time and effort into that. And he’s representative of all of St. Vincent de Paul and the people that work at St. Vincent de Paul, because he brings your expertise, your knowledge, and most of all, the collective heart that you have.

Thank you. There’s no words that can be said that really thank you enough for the work that you do. The many thousands upon thousands of lives that you have touched—you as St. Vincent de Paul—have touched. It just is remarkable. It’s truly a miraculous story. Thank you very much.

Presenter: Commissioner Laurie Trieger:

Commissioner Laurie Trieger: A friend of mine who was a volunteer program manager at United Way years ago taught me this really important thing, which is that ‘Volunteer is a pay grade, not a job description.’ 

We often think of volunteer work as sort of low-level, not so important, anybody could do it. But it really just speaks to somebody stepping up to perform something without being compensated. And sometimes it’s really literally lifesaving, highly skilled work. So thank you for doing that.

I also just really love (as always) the creativity in problem-solving that Lane County found. We don’t abandon programs when funding is tight or is revoked by another entity. We dig in deeper and we reach out further and we find good partners in the community. And we continue to focus on building the system we know we need, even if the way that we implement that system might look different than we envisioned.

So I’m really grateful to St. Vincent de Paul for being such a good partner all these years so that we had that trusted connection with the organization that we could then problem-solve together and arrive at this solution.

So thank you so much to everyone, and thank you to the administrator and to the folks at H&HS, Kachina and Director (Eve) Gray, for problem-solving and making sure the community gets to keep having this really important program in place.

Presenter: Lane County recognizes the Public Health Reserve Corps, now administered by St. Vincent de Paul.