10.12.20 Mexican Heritage Plaza

The County of Santa Clara
October 12, 2020
Live Stream - Briefing Live stream
10:00am PT

Corina Herrera-Loera: Hello we will start off by taking off our masks during our segment so you can understand us better my name is Corina Herrera-Loera Public Information Officer for the Santa Clara County Emergency Operations Center today as you can see we're in our lovely School of Arts and Culture at the Mexican Heritage Plaza and we have Vanessa she Associate Director she's a Co-Leader here along with Executive Director she's been here for over 10 years and was an Interim Director before our new Executive Director came on so welcome Vanessa and it feels weird because it's more like I'm feeling welcomed here in your space right well welcome back and thank you for having me really appreciate being able to spend some time with you thank you uh and we'll start off I know you guys are doing you know things a little differently during this time can you explain to us what types of services currently the you're having here at the Plaza


Vanessa Shieh: Yeah absolutely you know as with a number of organizations here in the community throughout San Jose throughout the County the school of Arts and Culture has really flexed its programming to be more responsive to community needs so every month the first and third Mondays of every month we offer food distribution to our community serving about 500 families every week with in partnership with Second Harvest of Silicon Valley in addition we also offer free COVID 19 testing to our community in partnership with Gardner Family Health Services and not to be undone because we know that in addition to all of the responses and needs that our community has we're continuing to offer creative content and cultural content to our community so that they can continue to celebrate their traditions and feel connected to their community so we have a number of virtual events as well online


CHL: Beautiful and can you tell us I understand you mentioned the first and the third Monday of every month for the food can you tell us what that looks like what time should people arrive you know is there a certain place they get to arrive to

VS: Absolutely you want to arrive we offer food distributions starting registration as early as 9:30 am in our King Road parking lot at that time you'll register get situated and then we will send you to our other parking lot where a number of fantastic volunteers from our community here our team here at the School of Arts and Culture Second Harvest will then put your food no contact no touching directly into your trunk and food distribution takes place from 10 am till 12 noon every first and third Monday


CHL: Beautiful thank you and then I also know that you mentioned the testing which is so important for our community and I believe uh you mentioned Wednesdays if you can give us a little bit more of the timing what that looks like if I'm interested in testing um what time should I show up


VS: Sure sure so you want to arrive here starting as early as 9:30 first come first serve we will give you a wristband for a reservation for a testing time testing it takes place itself between 1pm and 7pm so we hope that we make it as convenient as possible for our community so you can come on your lunch hour you can also come after work after you know the school day is done for your children uh 1 pm to 7 pm every Wednesday


CHL: Nice so you could actually show up that same day and get tested that same day

VS: Same day and let's and let's also say that you know hey you didn't have you didn't have an opportunity to pick up your wristband in the morning as early again as availability you'll get tested right away right and the test time itself like I've actually gone through it our team has gone through it it takes at most 10 minutes


CHL: Beautiful and can you tell me um is it free do I need insurance if I don't have insurance can I still take the test how does that work


VS: Testing is completely free you do not need insurance you do not need to show an ID you come and fill out information so that the test results can be emailed to you within three to five days and completely free to the community


CHL: Beautiful now can you tell us a little bit about um I think you mentioned you are partnering with Gardner the County why did you all feel that it was important to have it here at the Plaza?


VS: Well as you know as the County's own statistics tell us Latino Communities are being disproportionately hit by the pandemic and East San Jose where the Mexican Heritage Plaza is located is a community of first responders it's a community of essential workers and the Mexican Heritage Plaza itself is a trusted facility this facility and the site has been here for our community as a hub as a resource for the past 20 years so this is a trusted site that is easily accessible to a number of people to walk to to drive to to bike to to take the you know the bus line to and get tested um and I think that you know in partnership I want to also acknowledge that Gardner Family Health Services also saw the need to ensure that we had widespread testing for free in our community as well


CHL: Thank you um and is there a certain number of tests that um are given every day um you know and are we filling those up you know is there maybe I don't know if you have like total numbers of people that have tested or um what that looks like um because it's every Wednesday correct?


VS: Yes Every Wednesday


CHL: So um people have the opportunity to take this test in our community every other week VS: Every week

CHL: um are the numbers filling up


VS: So we have a capacity to be able to test every Wednesday 300 members of the community I would say that we are not at capacity yet and that's part of what we want to do is we want to encourage people to come and get tested and then come and get tested again because getting tested once is not enough right you may be Negative one time but then exposure may cause you to be Positive and we want to ensure that you know again people get tested to protect themselves but also to be able to protect their family their friends their communities and co-workers


CHL: So um if you're out there listening to this and you have not gotten tested yet you have the opportunity to come here every Wednesday between one and seven get your bracelet early on and then come back at you know the time that you have for yourself my understanding again they have 300 tests every week not filled um and so if we don't fill those up you know unfortunately sometimes things like these get you know taken or changed um so we don't want this to go away we want this to continue for our community come out and get tested um and Vanessa would somebody that's kind of like I still don't feel comfortable um what would you tell them if they're still kind of in between of getting tested or not


VS: I would let people know who may be a little bit reluctant or hesitant to get tested is number one um it doesn't hurt you know we've had children as young as four years old get tested and not you know and be able to get through it just fine I would also offer that for our community this this is a responsibility that we have to one another this is how we show up and support one another is to get tested right and I would also offer that this is one way in which we're going to be able to really reopen our County and our City and our Communities is if we have widespread tested testing and this is something so easy takes 10 minutes at most for our community members to get done


CHL: Thank you um and then any before we finish up here anything else that you would like to share with our community during this time maybe from your resources or anything you'd like to close up with


VS: Absolutely if you have any questions you want some more information I would love to invite everyone to take a look at our website that is schoolofartsandculture.org we have a lot of resources there and a lot of information for the community


CHL: Beautiful thank you so much Vanessa for making time to sit with us and for having us in your home today such a beautiful place I appreciate to all the services you are all continuing to provide to our community uh during this time and shifting gears right along so thank you so much for what you do here at the Plaza and in our community



VS: Thank you so much


CHL: Um and you know as you all heard you know if you haven't gotten tested or even if you have we get to continue to get testing the opportunity here at the Plaza every Wednesday from one to seven um come bring your family let your friends know the opportunities here it's free of cost and we've had children as young as four years old you heard that so anybody anybody can come test get tested and for those of you you know watching remember you know we all get to continue to do a part along with getting tested wear our face masks uh maintain social distancing um you know follow those directives and you know things are looking good right um we've shifted you know from different phases and I look forward to continuing the shift and you know the next phase um to then um go back to you know coming to a place like this where we used to share you know in uh different events together so let's continue to do our part to keep ourselves and our community healthy stay safe and we'll see you soon thank you very much