All Los Rios students who get the COVID-19 vaccine are eligible to receive an incentive, including those who received their vaccination before the requirement was put into place.
Students who have completed the COVID-19 verification form and provide evidence of receiving their first shot by Sept. 1, will receive $100 as well as students providing evidence of being fully vaccinated by Nov. 1 will also receive an additional $100, according to an announcement sent out by Chancellor Brian King.
Students will receive information about the process to submit their vaccination status in their eServices account, according to the announcement.
“We want to make sure that people meet the requirements so they can stay in their classes, but also they continue to get their second shot, get fully vaccinated because we know that’s what’s best for our students and our campus communities from a public health perspective,” said Associate Vice Chancellor of Strategy and Communications Gabe Ross.
Ross said students can either get the verification form from the California Digital COVID-19 Vaccination site and use that as proof or they can use their phone to take a picture of their actual vaccination card and upload it to eServices.
“We want people to get vaccinated and get their information uploaded as quickly as possible,” Ross said. “The beauty of this implementation is students don’t have to do anything else, they don’t have to apply for the check, if they have a BankMobile account already set up with the district, that money will automatically appear in their account, and if they don’t have a BankMobile account, then they’ll get a check mailed to them automatically.”
Sarai Argueta, a 20-year-old business administration major and CRC Student Senator, said the COVID-19 vaccination being an incentive is a great way to encourage people to get the vaccine, if they haven’t gotten it yet.
“With the incentives, the campus also wants to support us even more financially,” Argueta said. “You can use that money and it’s not really telling us what to use it on, so it’s kind of like an open option for people with all kinds of struggles that we don’t know about or it could go into their savings as well.”
Argueta said she is brainstorming some ideas of possible things to implement for students that will be on ground this semester and for other students online.
“I definitely want to find some solutions where we can still try to be safe, especially for those people that are coming on campus once or twice a week or three times a week,” Argueta said. “I feel like that’s one of the things that I’m going to focus more this semester is probably student health in terms of COVID because there’s different areas you could focus on specifically like ‘Oh we should get more COVID test regulations, there’s stuff about the booster shots.’”
She also said the COVID clinics that will be on campus the first week the semester begins is a great source for students to get vaccinated and receive their $100 or $200 in the upcoming weeks if they choose to upload their proof of vaccination.
“I feel like that situation offers a great solution for those students where they can just either do a walk-in or preferably make an appointment,” Argueta said.
Student Trustee Jenn Galinato, who attends Sacramento City College, understands how the pandemic has caused financial strains on many students and hopes this incentive helps relieve some of those strains.
“We’ve seen how this pandemic has impacted a lot of students and especially with the push for AB-1456, where it would increase financial aid and reforming Cal Grant,” Galinato said. “Hopefully students will just have a little bit more money going into their pockets when the new term starts because COVID has impacted a lot of people financially.”
Galinato hopes that this incentive encourages more students to get vaccinated and for more students to return back to campus.
“It is an encouragement to get students vaccinated, that’s what I can say for sure and hopefully students will get vaccinated, especially since we’re making this return to campus slowly,” Galinato said.
Namira Hasan, a 21-year-old business administration major and the Director of Finance for Club and Events Board, said the recent vaccine mandate to come back on campus is important to stop the spread of COVID-19.
“As of right now, personally, I’ve been very much towards getting the vaccine and we’ve seen in California the rates were going down when the mass vaccination started,” Hasan said. “Now, I take a look back at the curve and I saw it was relatively increasing, just when students have the hope to go back on campus.”
Hasan also explained how this incentive will encourage students to get the vaccine as they gain extra money and keep our campus safe.
“It’s a good incentive as this will nudge students towards getting the vaccine and being more safe around campus,” Hasan said. “I know that students are getting back to campus this fall semester and this money can help them get textbooks or even cover transportation fees.”
Ross said if anyone is unsure of how or where to get the COVID-19 vaccine, they can go to the Los Rios.edu/vaccine website.
“All clinics are free and every student regardless of their immigration status is eligible for a free vaccine,” Ross said. “We’re trying to make it as easy as possible for students to get vaccinated.”