I think one of the biggest events of my life that really seriously wove me into Worcester's community was running the vaccine clinic when Covid happened. I was working for the Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester where I still am and one of my very good friends from grad school was the project manager for the commissioner, Dr. Castiel. She's our Commissioner of Health and Human Services.......I basically got "voluntold" that I was going to be running the logistics of our vaccine clinics and that was a year of getting up at like 1:00 am, driving to Worcester, picking up these vaccines at this, you know, super secret location, and then rolling out these neighborhood church driven, community driven vaccine clinics where we were going into grocery stores--all this stuff and by doing that I met everybody.
Temperance Staples was born in Wellesley, Massachusetts and currently lives in Somerville. In this interview she describes her work with Coalition for a Healthy Greater Worcester and how it has connected her to the Worcester community, her graduate education at Clark University, her work during the Covid pandemic, and the current state of access to healthcare.