WellMed Charitable Foundation honored by National Council on Aging

By Christy Romero on June 25th, 2021

Special Exceptional Service Award recognizes WCF COVID-19 vaccination accomplishment

SAN ANTONIO, Texas – The WellMed Charitable Foundation has received the 2021 Trailblazers in Aging Award for Exceptional Service from the National Council on Aging. The awards were announced during the NCOA’s general session of its 2021 Age+Action Virtual Conference June 7.

The Exceptional Service award honors people or organizations that went above and beyond to deliver timely and life-saving service to older adults during the pandemic. WellMed Charitable Foundation, in partnership with WellMed Medical Management, was recognized for establishing two vaccination clinics — one at Elvira Cisneros Senior Community Center on San Antonio’s South Side, and the Alicia Trevino Lopez Senior One-Stop Center on the West Side.

The clinics administered more than 250,000 COVID-19 vaccines to mostly older adults. In addition, the foundation invested more than $400,000 to build software to transfer vaccination data directly into the state health database, eliminating the need for 50 volunteers a day.

“The opportunity to take our shuttered senior activity centers and use them to distribute more than 250,000 COVID-19 vaccinations in partnership with our WellMed clinicians and staff has been a humbling but powerful experience that has reminded us that we change lives one at a time,” said Carol Zernial, executive director, WellMed Charitable Foundation.