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Report for America is a national service program that places journalists into local newsrooms to report on under-covered issues and communities.

Vaccine Rollout At Belvidere Assembly Plant

Stellantis
Belvidere Assembly Plant

 

Workers at the Belvidere Assembly Plant are eligible for COVID-19 vaccines beginning this week. 

In Boone County, workers at the Stellantis -- formerly Fiat-Chrysler -- assembly plant -- can now get their shots. Kevin Logan is the President of UAW 1268. He says the vaccines are a good sign. 

 

“I think this is a great thing for us and our communities, and hopefully, with people volunteering and getting this vaccine, we can hopefully get back to some type of normal operating business towards the later part of the year," said Logan.

 

But, Logan says he wants to make sure employees at the surrounding supplier plants can also get vaccinated. 

 

“They're a part of this local, whether they work for Chrysler or, you know, another, another vendor, or a dues-paying member, a person in this community that deserved to get this vaccine as well.”

 

1,800 vaccines will be available to employees at no cost at a near-site location. Employees must register in advance.

Illinois moved to the 1B phase of vaccinations for COVID-19 this week. That includes essential frontline workers and individuals 65 and older.

 

According to Stellantis, the workers at the Belvidere assembly pant will be the first Stellantis North American employees to receive the vaccine at this scale.

 

 

  • Juanpablo Ramirez-Franco is a current corps member for Report for America, an initiative of the GroundTruth Project which is a national service program that places talented journalists in local newsrooms.
Juanpablo covers environmental, substandard housing and police-community relations. He’s been a bilingual facilitator at the StoryCorps office in Chicago. As a civic reporting fellow at City Bureau, a non-profit news organization that focuses on Chicago’s South Side, Ramirez-Franco produced print and audio stories about the Pilsen neighborhood. Before that, he was a production intern at the Third Coast International Audio Festival and the rural America editorial intern at In These Times magazine. Ramirez-Franco grew up in northern Illinois. He is a graduate of Knox College.