26 FEBRUARY 11, 2021 RIDGEWOOD TIMES WWW.QNS.COM
Maspeth High School social worker helps seniors
complete online registration for COVID-19 vaccine
BY SOFIA VALDES
EDITORIAL@QNS.COM
@QNS
Telemundo and NBC recognized
Maspeth High School social
worker Justin Spiro for volunteering
to register the elderly to get
the COVID-19 vaccine.
Navigating online platforms can
be difficult, especially for senior
citizens, so Spiro has provided the
service to assist.
“You had so many groups of people
eligible. You know, you had 80-yearolds
eligible and at the same time you
had younger teachers and educators
and social workers like myself eligible,”
Spiro said, “It just created this
inequity and this unfair imbalance
where an 80-year-old had to compete
with the computer, tech-savvy skills
of a 30-year-old who is much better
able to refresh pages constantly and
check multiple websites and multiple
devices. An 80-year-old would be
lucky enough to check their email.”
Since the pandemic started, Spiro
fell in the group of many New Yorkers
who have felt helpless and hopeless
about the whole situation. He
wanted to help in any way he could
but knew there was nothing he
could provide on the medical front.
Further, schools have been remote,
so the kind of work he can off er has
been limited.
When the vaccine was released,
Spiro saw an opportunity to make a
tangible diff erence in fi ghting back.
“I started at fi rst by helping my own
family members, getting my grandmother
an appointment for her vaccine,
and other people who I am close
to in my personal life,” Spiro said. “I
started going online and booking
for people and it started out small
and then it grew and grew until I
was working with other people as
well, and people were helping me, I
was helping them, to book for many,
many people.”
According to Spiro, the websites
have proven to be unpredictable, so
he spends a lot of his time scouring
the internet for vaccine sites, available
time slots, etc.
“Sometimes there are dry days
where you can go three or four days
in a row that no website has availability
and then unfortunately, I’m not
doing much volunteer work. Then,
there are other days where all these
diff erent sites start loading and I
might spend hours on those days
because there are always diff erent
appointments that become available
so I try to book as many diff erent
people as possible.”
A couple of weeks ago, Spiro
volunteered at a vaccination site in
Justin Spiro Photo via Maspeth High School Media Team
Brooklyn, which inspired him even
more to involve himself in helping
elderly people get the vaccine.
“There were over 800 people who
came through over the course of the
day and I was helping them get registered
and get through the line and
I noticed that there were relatively
fewer senior citizens,” Spiro said.
“The group that has the highest rate of
deaths from COVID was least represented
among those there and I think
it’s because they are not tech-savvy
enough to get those appointments, so
that’s not right.”
Through his efforts, Spiro continues
to stress the importance of
getting vaccinated.
“There is an expression in Judaism,
‘You save one life, it’s like saving a
whole world,’” Spiro said. “I think
that’s even more true here because a
vaccine doesn’t only protect the person
who’s getting it; it’s potentially
protecting everyone that person
might interact with.”
Volunteering his time assisting
the elderly community is not the
only area in which he helps his community.
Spiro is a social worker at
Maspeth High School, focusing on
the mental health of the student body,
overseeing the mental health clinic,
and assigning social work interns to
help students in need. He meets with
students one-on-one to ensure they
get the proper care needed as well.
Spiro is known around the high
school campus as “such a kind, caring
and dedicated individual,” Maspeth
High School’s Assistant Principal
Jesse Pachter said. “He never stops.
His offi ce is always like a revolving
door. I’ll walk by his offi ce and it will
never be just him. There’s always a
student in there and he always just
wants to keep busy and talk to students
24/7.”
Maspeth High School places a
strong emphasis on community and
serving others. In November, Pachter
was able to fi nd a way to help the community
while maintaining COVID
precautions by encouraging students
to clean up their community through
their new club “Maspeth Makes a
Diff erence.”
Additionally, Pachter continues
to advocate for students to build
relationships with their counselors.
“I don’t want a student to go around
their entire high school with never
having an interaction with their
guidance counselor or only having
it for the college application process,”
Pachter said.
Spiro helps carry this message
through by really going the extra
mile to make sure students are getting
the guidance they need. In the
seven years that Pachter has worked
with Spiro, he has seen him routinely
check on students to make sure
they don’t “fall through the cracks,”
Pachter said. Spiro has agreed to stay
aft er school on numerous occasions
as late as six or seven at night to meet
with parents when it is most convenient
for them, rather than opting
for a phone call to discuss a student
in need.
“He’s that type of guy that just won’t
give up and he will never give up on
a student,” Pachter said. “So it’s so
interesting when you see that that’s
not just him in school; that’s his personality
in general.”
“As I got older that calling to social
work stuck with me and I went to
graduate school for social work and I
learned mental health expertise, enabling
me to then not just work with
kids in a camp capacity, but actually
be able to provide the mental health
support they need which to me was
an even more meaningful way of supporting
them,” Spiro said.
Since being noticed for his activism
by NBC and Telemundo, Spiro
has seen growing support from the
community.
“There is so much need out there
and so much desire to help and I’m
just, along with my existing volunteers,
trying to fi gure out how to
manage all that and how to harness
all that and have people help as best
possible,” Spiro said.
link
/WWW.QNS.COM
link
