FOR BREAKING NEWS VISIT WWW.QNS.COM FEBRUARY 11, 2021 • THE QUEENS COURIER 37
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 diffi
cult, 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-year-olds
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 difference
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. Th en, 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 Brooklyn,
which inspired him even more to involve
himself in helping elderly people get the
vaccine.
“Th ere 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. “Th e 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.”
Th rough his eff orts, Spiro continues
to stress the importance of getting vaccinated.
“Th ere 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. Th ere’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 communitythrough
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.
“Th ere 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.
buzz
Photo via Maspeth High School Media Team
Justin Spiro
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