People of color in America have been especially hard hit during the ongoing pandemic, with disproportionate rates of illness and death from the coronavirus. This past week, the Gloucester Branch of the NAACP was able to do something about it.

The NAACP branch sponsored a COVID-19 vaccination clinic for 150 residents on Saturday, Feb. 20, in collaboration with Three Rivers Health District and Riverside Walter Reed Hospital.

Branch president Brenda Dixon said that, as a Black health care professional herself, she wanted to ensure that “our community is safe and healthy.”

“COVID-19 has devastated communities of color at an alarmingly disproportional rate,” she said. “People of color have witnessed more cases, more hospitalizations and more deaths due to COVID-19 than the white population.”

SHERRY HAMILTON / GAZETTE-JOURNALAngeline Arrington, left, receives her first shot of the Moderna vaccine from nurse Jody Emerson of the Three Rivers Health District during an NAACP-sponsor...