Parents and Guardians of 5- To 11-Year-Olds Who Receive Their First Vaccine Dose by December 19 Can Enter Into the Random Drawing Here
Scholarship Includes Tuition, Room And Board
10 Winners per Week for Five Weeks with First Winners Announced November 24; Drawing Schedule Available Here
Parents, Guardians, And Communities Encouraged To Visit Ny.Gov/Vaxforkids;
New Posters, Stickers and Other Assets Available For Providers on the Ground Here
Governor Hochul: "We have a plan I'm announcing today. It's called Vaccinate, Educate, Graduate. And what that means is anybody have kids in this age group, you're not going to want to miss your chance. We are going to be allowing people to get vaccinated and then to be part of a pool, and we'll be selecting 50 names of children who will receive a full ride to a SUNY or CUNY institution. Tuition, fees, room and board, the whole nine yards."
Hochul: "There is no reason, with all the resources available to us, places like this all over the state, there's no excuse not to get the adults vaccinated, get the kids vaccinated, and put this pandemic in the rear view mirror. We'll talk about it in the past tense and not the current tense."
Earlier today, during a COVID-19 briefing at the Mount Vernon Neighborhood Health Center in Westchester County, Governor Kathy Hochul announced new efforts to support vaccinating 5- to 11-year-olds, including the launch of a new vaccine incentive program - 'Vaccinate, Educate, Graduate' - for young New Yorkers. Parents and guardians of children ages 5 through 11 who receive their first vaccine dose by December 19th can enter the State's incentive program for a chance for their child to win a full scholarship to any two- or four-year SUNY or CUNY college or university; the scholarship includes tuition, room, and board. Ten winners will be announced each week beginning November 24th, with a total of 50 winners being selected over the five-week period.
VIDEO of the event is available on YouTube here and in TV quality (h.264, mp4) format here.
AUDIO of the event is available here.
PHOTOS of the event are available on the Governor's Flickr page.
A rush transcript of the Governor's remarks are available below:
Judith, you don't thank me, we thank you. We thank you for the passion that you bring to this endeavor to make sure that people in this community are safe and that they're healthy, and that they'll have a far better outcome than they would have had if it wasn't for you and all the angels who are part of the Mount Vernon Neighborhood Center here. I want to thank all of them, your board of directors, the volunteers, the staff. It is extraordinary. You can go on forever because I'm listening to you saying this is truly what matters in the lives of the people we all represent and you are making a profound difference. So, to Judith and to all the entire team here at Mount Vernon Neighborhood Center, I want to thank you. Thank you. Let's give them a round of applause.
It's always great to see our County Executive here. He's been a little busy lately, got through a couple of milestones and he just looks more relaxed than the last time I saw him. So, that's a good thing. I hoped to look that relaxed at some point as well. So I'm a little bit envious and thank you for getting the budget on time. We're always happy to hear that as well.
Also, you mentioned the pandemic, Judith. This individual worked so hard to protect the people of this county. I went to the mass vax site, it was one of the most exceptional in the entire state and I saw them all. The experience, it felt like an uplifting patriotic experience has all these beautiful images going through the arena, music and people just walk around with such an upbeat attitude about the mission before them. And I want to thank the County Executive George Latimer for making that happen.
Also, I come out of local government, so I'm going to show a little love to the local mayor here. We've worked very closely together and you always are letting me know the needs of your constituents, how important they are. So I want to thank you and look forward to continuing working together for many years to come, our mayor, Shawyn Patterson-Howard. Let's give her a round of applause.
And also, I was until just recently, the President of the Senate. So, my senators are my family, too. I can never overlook them and I know how hard they work. When you don't see them in the district, you need to know they're out there knocking heads with everybody else because anybody that stands in the way of what their district needs better watch out. So, I want to thank first of all, someone who served before and I want to show respect to her cause she has always been such a great friend to me, Ruth Hassell-Thompson. You know, your service was extraordinary. Extraordinary. You've been a tremendous partner of ours.
And some of the more recent additions who I've had the pleasure of working with, Senator Jamaal Bailey. Thank you. We've had many conversations about the needs of your district and we are going to take care of them. And that is my commitment to you. Create jobs, deal with these health disparities that came to light so profoundly during this pandemic. I want to thank you for all you do, and will continue to do.
Senator Shelley Mayer again, just knock it out of the park up in our state legislature. Really a true fighter. I thank you. Senator Pete Harckham, a tireless advocate for the people you represent. Thank you.
Assemblymember Gary Pretlow is here. Thank you, Assemblymember. Assemblymember Steve Otis is here and if I missed anybody.
Also, Reverend DeCohen. We've prayed together. You've preached, I've preached. You're a lot better at it than I am. That's all right. And I also want to thank you for all the services, the community, and I'm going to make an announcement if it hasn't been already heard here. You got to give her up to me now. Okay. Viviana DeCohen is now the new head of New York State Veterans Services statewide. You can tell, I like to surround myself with strong women. She is one tough cookie, yes she is. And, it's got to be a tough man who can handle that. So all my respect to you, Reverend. And she's dynamite. I met her in person when I saw what she was doing out of Concordia and all the work she's done. And I said, this is a person I need at my side to show the rest of the state how we're going to be fighting for our veterans. You put someone who's a fighter by nature in charge of this program and we're going to fight hard to make sure that every veteran, whether they're recently returning or came back during an earlier war, Korea, Vietnam, when they did not get the recognition they deserved, particularly this week, we honor them, not just now, but going forward. So I want to thank everyone. And the DeCohen family, you'll be seeing a lot less of her. Sorry, got to learn how to cook, my friend, or Blue Apron or something.
We're here about the kids and I know the little kids have a short attention span. That's okay, but, this is a very, very, very special day as we put a spotlight on how important it is to get our children vaccinated. The number one question I seem to get these days from the press and parents alike, when can we stop having the kids wear masks in schools? I want them to stop wearing masks in schools. The key to doing that is getting them vaccinated.
And now, we waited a long time, finally, all school aged children are eligible for the vaccine. There's no excuse. We've ordered an awful lot. We have over 700,000 doses. 300,000 from New York City, over 400,000 for the State of New York. Half of the population of children in this age group, we already have the doses ready to administer and we're ready to get more as soon as we need them. That's what we're focused on, making sure that we have enough, that we continue to work with our local healthcare providers, like right here at Mount Vernon. Make sure you've got a supply. If you run out, you call me personally and make sure all these kiddos have their vaccination.
Our pediatrician's offices, our clinics, drugstores, we will make sure they have whatever they need, because right now here's what I see, friends, a lot of demand, like the lines are maybe a little long and all this is good. At some point, if the parents are any indicator, it's going to level off and then we'll be starting to say, okay, where are the pockets where we need more kids vaccinated so we can let them feel normal again, get out there and play and go to school without the masks on that will happen when we get them vaccinated, but we also know that there's some areas that aren't doing as well. And Judith pointed to this, this area has about a 61 percent vaccination rate. This zip code right here. I always check on it.
Statewide, I'm very proud to announce and I'm going to get this right, because I know I saw this story, I thought this was phenomenal. As of today, 75 percent of all New Yorkers have received at least one dose. One dose. That's over 28 million doses administered. I'm focusing on where it's not as high. I'm very competitive. I don't want any area to not be excelling in the way that they should. We're going to make sure that that happens.
So, what we did was we surveyed all the schools. We asked them to partner with us, at least half of all the school districts are going to be doing in-school vaccination opportunities. You know, however they want to do it. Whether it's weekends, during school, after school, we're going to let them do that. 65 percent of school districts will be hosting them. That's even better than I thought. And I want to thank all the schools for their partnership and I'm trying to help find some incentives.
So, parents listen up, listen up. Now the $50 is wonderful. A hundred dollars is awesome. Keep doing that, but we have a plan I'm announcing today. It's called Vaccinate, Educate, Graduate. And what that means is anybody have kids in this age group, you're not going to want to miss your chance. We are going to be allowing people to get vaccinated and then to be part of a pool, and we'll be selecting 50 names of children who will receive a full ride to a SUNY or CUNY institution.
Tuition, fees, room and board, the whole nine yards. So if one of your children wins this, you might want to take them to Disney World, because that'd be a very good thing. You'll have extra money now. You don't have to be saving for college. So everybody with children needs to do this. We'll be announcing 50 winners over five weeks takes place until November 22nd until December 20th, November 22nd, December 20th. Enter at governor.ny.gov/NYSvaccineincentive or there's a phone number to call. So if you don't have the ability to register online, there is a phone number to call we'll make sure all that information gets out there.
So, I'm very excited about that. I think that's going to be an incentive. If anybody's sitting on the fence, this is the best. Well, there's two great gifts you can give your children. One is the gift of good health, and that's what they'll get when you get them vaccinated. And secondly, the shot at getting this full ride scholarship, which I'm very excited about.
Also, we're announcing even more resources. We talked about the fact that there's a lot of disinformation going around there, which is a polite way of saying there's a lot of lies floating around and unfortunately people are believing the lies. We have to stop that right now and we're working at it from so many different approaches. So we have a vaccination kit for parents, vax for kids campaign. We're going to have social media messages, posters, information cards, kid-friendly stickers, translating all the documents in different languages so everybody understands how important this is. Again, this will unlock the door to a normal existence for all of us, and it starts with the kids. And also these kids can't wait to see their grandma and grandpa probably Thanksgiving. A lot of families are getting back together. Maybe they didn't see each other last year because it was still in the throes of the pandemic. It's hard to believe that we didn't even have a vaccine for adults available this time last year. Now the families will be gathering, let's make sure that grandma and grandpa who suffered so much to be away from the kids, do not get sick from children who are exposed to other kids. If everybody gets vaccinated, we're going to protect all of our family members. That's really, really important to me.
So we're also announcing that we're going to be focused on getting more programs into our schools, as I mentioned. And one more thing, I like competition. Let's have a design contest. I'm going to pass out some stickers to the kids. I'll admit, with all due respect to whoever designed them, they could be a little more creative. I want to see what the kids want to see. I want to see what would excite the kids. So we're going to have a competition and let the kids design the stickers that we're going to give out all over the state. And as I was coming over there, I said I don't want adults to pick them. As much as I'd have fun picking them myself, I want kids to pick it. I want them to be the ones who decide that this is what they want to see.
So we're going to get more information out about vaccinations. We're going to have the social media design contest as well as our sticker contest and, my friends, I am very excited about this. I'm looking forward to continuing to work with all of you and to make sure that we get it right this time. There is no reason, with all the resources available to us, places like this all over the state, there's no excuse not to get the adults vaccinated, get the kids vaccinated, and put this pandemic in the rear view mirror. We'll talk about it in the past tense and not the current tense.
We're heading into the holiday season. This is when we have the focus on our families. This is the best thing we can do for our families right now is to make sure that their vaccinated. Thank you for your time. Again, thank you for the heart you bring to this. It's so contagious to see your energy and excitement for what you do. And to all of you, my partners in government and others, I thank you for all you do for us. Let's get the job done. Thank you.