Biden Launches Effort To Recruit 1,000 Black-Owned Barbershops, Salons To Boost COVID-19 Vaccinations

As part of a major effort to boost vaccinations, the White House on Wednesday (June 2) launched a handful of community-based outreach initiatives, including blanketing local media, providing colleges with resources, and an effort to recruit 1,000 Black-owned barbershops and beauty salons across the country to boost coronavirus vaccinations and outreach in communities of color. According to the Washington Post, Biden also detailed an array of new incentives being offered by the private sector that include free food delivery, baseball tickets, Xboxes, and chances to win cruise tickets, groceries for a year, and free airline flights.

The announcement of “Shots at the Shop” builds on the success of several barbershops around the country, including one in Hyattsville, Md., that has held vaccination clinics. Vaccination levels lag in Black and Brown communities, among others, and the barbershop initiative is seen as one way to persuade those who have been hardest hit by the pandemic but are often reluctant to get the shots.

It is a collaboration between the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, the Black Coalition Against Covid-19, a D.C.-based community organization, the University of Maryland Center for Health Equity, and the SheaMoisture hair products company.

The four partners are encouraging barbers and stylists to take part in training about the coronavirus vaccines this month and hold vaccination clinics in their shops in partnership with health providers, said Cameron Webb, a senior health equity adviser on the administration’s covid-19 response team.

“We are acknowledging the critical role barbershops and beauty salons play in these communities hard hit by the pandemic,” Webb said in an interview.

SheaMoisture is offering a $1,000 stipend to show support for shops that take on this level of “social responsibility that make them pillars in their community,” Webb said.

Barbershops in any community will be able to apply to participate in the new program, but priority will be given to those in parts of the country where vaccination rates are lowest. Webb said the priority will be about 30 cities where there are still significant gaps. Many are in the South and include places like Atlanta, Charlotte, San Antonio, Greensboro, N.C., Raleigh, N.C., and Birmingham.

In states like Florida, Georgia, and Texas, “we are casting a wide net to make sure we are getting as many places as we can,” Webb said.

Not all participating shops will be in urban areas. “In a lot of rural communities, you can have impact,” he said.

Webb said officials “would love to see all 1,000 shops do vaccination events,” noting that is the goal. But organizers also are relying on the unique role of barbershops and beauty salons as gathering places to dispel disinformation and misinformation about the vaccines.

“Just the number of people they touch — think about everyone who sits down in that chair and how that reverberates through the community,” Webb said. “They may not be vaccinated, but they become a really key vehicle in getting information to their family and other community members.”

Barbers and stylists have been hubs of information in the Black community for generations, he said. “The conversations happen naturally, and by having barbers and stylists gain insight and knowledge about how vaccines work and their key mechanisms, that information can be spread to the rest of the community through a trusted messenger,” he added.

Biden is also expected to announce that he is tasking Vice President Harris to lead a “We Can Do This” national tour to highlight ways to get vaccinated. The White House said her focus will be on Southern states, where vaccinations lag much of the rest of the country.

Biden is also expected to touch on some of the enticements that his administration has helped arrange.

According to the White House, they include a CVS-run sweepstakes to win free cruises, tickets to Super Bowl LVI and cash prizes; gift cards from Door Dash; free tickets to Major League Baseball games for those vaccinated at stadiums; Xboxes distributed by Microsoft through Boys and Girls Clubs in hard-hit areas; free groceries from Kroger; and a sweepstakes run by United Airlines to win a year of free flights.

The White House also said that four of the nation’s largest child-care providers will offer free child care to all parents and caregivers getting vaccinated or recovering from vaccinations from now until July 4.

The president set Independence Day as a target date by which 70 percent of U.S. adults would receive at least one shot of a coronavirus vaccine. The country still has to immunize about 20 million more adults to reach that goal.

For more information, visit madetosave.org/month-of-action/