Hundreds drive through to get COVID vaccine at Porterville fair

PORTERVILLE, Calif. (KFSN) -- One dose of the Pfizer vaccine down, one to go for Porterville's Alejandro Zavala.

"I feel a lot safer and I feel like we'll finally get back to normal soon faster, hopefully," says Zavala, a Porterville resident.

Zavala and members of his family attended the drive-through vaccine and resource fair held at the Porterville Fairgrounds on Monday.

Before getting their shots, they stopped at various booths for free resources related to the pandemic, other disasters such as wildfires, and just life in general.

Brianna Galindo also received her first dose of the vaccine on Monday.

She says she's telling others about the event on her social media pages.

"They gave us hand sanitizer, a couple of masks, different things like that and then also mental health resources, which I thought was awesome," she says.

Rico Peralta with the United Way of Fresno and Madera Counties says 35 community-based organizations and non-profits are participating in the three-day event.

"Folks coming into the drive, they may think they're here for a clinical experience, get a shot, but we're doing so much more than that with these wrap-around health and resource fairs that we're doing," he says.

Funding was provided by Listos California and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative, founded by Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his wife, Priscilla Chan.

Tulare County Public Health supplied 3,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine.

Organizers say whatever food and materials they have left over won't go to waste.

They'll be bringing those directly to farmworkers in the days to come, and telling them about other vaccination events.