Virginia Tech volunteers in Medical Reserve Corps help on front lines of pandemic

BLACKSBURG, Va. (WDBJ) - The Medical Reserve Corps helps on the front lines of the pandemic with our healthcare workers.

Virginia Tech students, faculty and staff are among the hundreds beside them, doing the work that often goes unseen.

“We’re public health, this is what we do, if you see a need and we wanted to jump in and help,”said Sofie Wenzel.

Wenzel is the associate director of the Center for Public Health Practice and Research at Virginia Tech. She has been volunteering with the corps as a contact tracer, case investigator and Spanish translator.

“From the department head to the admin assistant. I mean people have seen a need and they are on the ground making phone calls, doing paperwork, answering questions,” said Wenzel.

There are about 600 corps volunteers for the New River Valley, and many include Virginia Tech employees and students. In fact, all students enrolled in their Master of Public Health program are trained to work with the corps.

Even students, like Kat Drinkard, who have volunteered at least 100 hours with the New River Health District’s COVID-19 efforts.

“Just really being able to do anything we can to help support the really hard-working people at the health district and kind of gives them, you know, as much assistance as we can,“ said Drinkard.

Her jobs have included everything from calling people to report test results to scheduling vaccine appointments.

“Not only is it a good experience for my education, for my future career, but just in general as a member of the community, being able to actually do something and then feel like I’m contributing to helping the community through the pandemic,“ said Drinkard.

“It’s getting out of my home office that I’ve been in for the past 10 months; it’s a way to merge my Spanish language skills and my public health skills to do something that can be useful and helpful to the health department staff,” said Wenzel.

Wenzel says having the students volunteer is the one thing they can do to both gain valuable on-the-ground experience, but also to take the burden off health department staff as everyone continues to fight the pandemic together.

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