Standing ovation for volunteers at Aviva Centralised Vaccination Centre

Senior officials from the HSE visited the Centralised Vaccination Centre (CVC) at the Aviva Stadium today to thank the team of volunteers, vaccinators, HSE staff and security personnel for their huge efforts in delivering COVID-19 vaccinations at the Aviva Centralised Vaccination Centre.  

During her speech, Martina Queally, Chief Officer for Community Healthcare East, especially highlighted the contribution of the volunteers at the Aviva CVC. 

The stadium then broke into a spontaneous standing ovation to celebrate the unprecedented effort made by the volunteers.  

 Martina Queally said: “This is one of the best teams I have ever watched at this stadium.”  

 With the support of the Department of Rural and Community Development, Dublin City Volunteer Centre also celebrated the volunteers’ achievements with a recognition event at the Aviva Stadium today.  

 Edwina Dewart, Manager of Dublin City Volunteer Centre, stated: “We have been absolutely overwhelmed by the outstanding commitment and leadership our volunteers have shown over the past few months.

“They have selflessly given up their time to help deliver the national COVID-19 vaccination programme, and turned up for long shifts with a smile on their face, knowing that they were making a difference in the fight against the pandemic.

“We are so incredibly grateful for their contribution and proud to have worked with every single one of them as part of this programme.”

274 volunteers have shown incredible dedication to responding to the COVID-19 pandemic since the Vaccination Centre opened at the beginning of March 2021. As volunteer stewards, they have volunteered a total of 21,141 hours to date. 

Using the Living Wage of €12.30 per hour + tax, this equates to a value of €288,768. The volunteer programme at the Aviva CVC is managed by Dublin City Volunteer Centre (DCVC) on behalf of the Health Service Executive (HSE).  

 In their role as Aviva Centralised Vaccination Centre Volunteer Stewards, the volunteers play a key role in delivering vaccinations to up to 3500 patients per day. They provide guidance, manage the queues of steadily arriving patients and bring a friendly face and a lot of humour to what can be a stressful situation for many.  

 “When I got a chance to volunteer at the Aviva Vaccination centre, I saw an opportunity to contribute my time to this great cause. So many front-line professionals have been working extremely hard to get us out of this pandemic, so why not to do my part?”said Sueellen Machado, one of the Aviva CVC Volunteers.  

 DCVC was invited by the HSE to design and manage the CVC Volunteer Programme at the Aviva Stadium. With 274 volunteers, this is the largest volunteer programme DCVC has ever directly managed. 

More information about the Aviva CVC Volunteer Programme can be found here.