CHANDLER, AZ — Bashas’ grocery company is providing the COVID-19 vaccine to its essential Bashas' workers in Maricopa County.
The company received a total of 500 Johnson & Johnson vaccines and has already administered 200 of them to workers at an event earlier this week.
“The one dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine is really such a key piece because it just allows us to not have to worry about that follow up, just one shot and you're done," said Ashley Shick, Bashas Director of communications.
Bashas employees lined up in their cars outside the Bashas Chandler Distribution Center waiting for their COVID-19 vaccine Wednesday.
“The energy yesterday was something I’ve never experienced,” said Shick.
The company plans to hold another drive-thru vaccination event on Monday, March 22 from noon to 5 p.m. It’ll be held at its Distribution Center in Chandler.
Relief could be seen on the faces of more than 200 workers that were vaccinated as part of the dry run event.
“The one-dose Johnson and Johnson vaccine is really such a key piece because it just allows us to not have to worry about that follow up, just one shot and you're done,” said Shick.
But that’s not the only way they're delivering vaccines to employees.
The company also working with the federal retail pharmacy program to vaccinate employees at store pharmacies when the vaccine is available.
They say more shipments should be arriving this week, and with more than 8,000 employees, this is just the beginning, and they’ll waste no time in putting the supply they have to work.
At Monday’s event, they plan to administer the additional 300 vaccines.
“We’ve been watching and studying and paying attention and learning from what has been going on the last number of months, so we took all that information and put together our own drive-through vaccination clinic,” said Shick.
According to Shick, Bashas has a few thousand front-facing employees in Maricopa County and around 7,000 across the state that they are working to help receive the vaccine.
