By Cecilia Nasmith

The hundreds of volunteers who call themselves the Orange Army were officially thanked Friday for their roles in Northumberland County's wildly successful vaccination clinics that, since March 2021, have helped contribute to the region seeing 80% of its population age 12 and up fully vaccinated.

Many volunteers in this orange-shirted army were from the Rotary Club of Cobourg, represented by emcee Scott MacCoubrey in the presentation at the Cobourg Community Centre Bowl – also Cougars home ice, so that a red carpet had to be laid for the people MacCoubrey called up to address the properly-masked-and-distanced audience members who had produced proof of full vaccination to be present.

“You have made our community safer by volunteering at 175 vaccination clinics,” MacCoubrey said.

“You helped deliver 4,852 shots.

“Since we started, this Orange Army administered 55,749 doses of the COVID vaccine. It's simply astonishing.”

“You stood up and answered the call, which we haven't seen anywhere in this nation, and certainly in this province,” Northumberland-Peterborough South MPP David Piccini said.

The extraordinary collaboration with such partners as Northumberland Hills Hospital and the Haliburton Kawartha Pine Ridge District Health Unit even succeeded in securing an additional 4,000 doses of vaccine for the county.

Other partners include the Town of Cobourg for making the CCC available to use for the vaccination clinic, the Northumberland Family Health Team, who were invaluable in the advance planning, and Community Care Northumberland, who arranged rides for 1,000 members of the community who might otherwise have had no transportation to their vaccination appointments.

Then there were the Auxiliary Police volunteers who directed incoming community members looking for the appropriate entrance – and even dealt with a few of them who came simply to make known their opposition to this work.

“It really has been a full community response through all of this pandemic,” health unit Medical Officer of Health Dr. Natalie Bocking stated in presenting plaques of appreciation to the Rotary Club and to the Town of Cobourg.

“I think words can't describe what an important contribution you have made.”

“We are a remarkable, remarkable, truly remarkable community,” Piccini said.

“I think certainly if you look around this nation, I don't think we have ever seen a collective community response like we have seen right here in Northumberland County,” the MPP said.

“I draw inspiration from all of you for getting out into every corner of our community.”

Deputy Warden Mandy Martin pointed out the history the Rotary Club has had in hands-on vaccination work, with their Polio Plus campaign reducing polio by 99% worldwide. In the environment of fear and uncertainty created by COVID-19, she said, the Rotary Club of Cobourg stepped up to play an important role in organizing the clinic at the CCC and also working at such duties as welcoming members of the community, helping them navigate the space and providing reassurance, all done with professionalism, determination and kindness.

Jan Bradford and Shelly Oakman shared some of their experiences as volunteers.

“There's no greater feeling than to know you have helped so many people, young and old, to feel that their lives are getting back to normal, whatever normal is,” Bradford declared.

They spoke of vaccinating 90-year-olds leaving their homes for the first time in a year, 80-year-olds so excited that they wore masks they had blinged up for the occasion with spangles and sequins, 70-year-olds crying after a shot because they could look forward to seeing the grandchildren they missed so much, even 12-year-olds excited because now they could get back to school, friends and sports.

The Orange Army ranged in age from their 20s to their 80s. Its recruits included doctors, lawyers, bankers, teachers and retired executives. And Bradford was delighted to be part of it.

“I personally feel being a volunteer has helped me get through this pandemic,” she stated.

“Where could we go for the past 28 weeks and talk to so many people in one day. I looked forward each day to see my name on the schedule for one shift, maybe three. I can honestly say it has been the best and most rewarding job I have ever had.”

Oakman had been on duty the very first day when the very first shot was administered. She recalls the tears, the laughter, the jumping up and down.

“And that journey for 28 weeks has just become better and better and better,” she added.

The lesson she takes away is the amazing goodness of people – their kindness, their humanity.

“What you are doing is historic,” she declared.

“It hasn't happened in our generation. I probably won't happen again in our children's or grandchildren's generation. You have made the most amazing difference in people's lives and, from my perspective, this has made the most amazing difference in my life.”

During the darkest days of the pandemic, Rotarian Paul Allen said, “this was the only place we could legally congregate. We called it the social event of the year. For many of us, this clearly helped us through these challenging times.”

The first shot was administered at 9 a.m. March 16, Allen recalled.

“It was a one-of-a-kind project in this province, initiated and supported by volunteers and delivered by local health professionals.”

The first two weeks saw NHH administering 3,774 shots to the community's most vulnerable members. Thereafter, the health unit administered the shots to a slowly growing roster of people becoming eligible for their turn.

“Little did we realize how long these clinics would last and how many waves of the deadly virus we would have to endure,” Allen recalled.

By May and June, it became clear how many local residents were unable to get an appointment at the CCC and were forced to travel to clinics in Peterborough and Trenton. Mobile clinics went a long way toward addressing this situation. The first one took place at the Port Hope Fairgrounds June 10, and these clinics would deliver some 5,000 jabs.

Cobourg Mayor John Henderson said it was the second day he had addressed a sea of orange shirts, having just the previous day dedicated the town's Indigenous Seven Feathers crosswalk during the first Truth and Reconciliation Day.

From a sea of orange Thursday, he said, he went to an orange army on Friday. But the work of this group truly exemplifies the seven virtues symbolized by the seven feathers – love, respect, courage, honesty, humility, truth and wisdom.

Gord Ley recalled the earliest planning for the CCC clinic, with two objectives in mind – assisting the local medical professionals in getting arms to needles as well as needles to arms, and helping achieve an immunization level of 70 to 90%.

The partitions that turned the CCC Bowl into a mass-immunization clinic went up within 12 hours. The first 300 Orange Army volunteers were registered within 72 hours.

The club has recouped some of its costs in this massive effort by selling orange-and-white I Got The Shot lawn signs for a minimum donation of $10. They sold 2,000 of the signs, which are on lawns as far away as Windsor, and Ley said there is even one in the Medical Museum of Canada as part of its COVID-19 exhibit.

“In the very near future, we will be organizing booster shots and vaccines for 5-to-11-year-olds. Please know the Orange Army continues to stand ready and committed.”

This extraordinary accomplishment will be memorialized in a volunteer-appreciation wall on the Bowl's upper-storey southeast wall. It will carry a tribute and the 600 names of people who made it happen, as well as many of the comments written on the colourful Post-it Notes by vaccinated individuals immediately after getting their shots.