City’s vaccine referral bonus program provides funds to schools

The city sends the organizations $100 for every person they refer who gets the vaccine. There are 162 parent teacher organizations citywide that are participating in this program and have completed over 6,000 referrals to date.

News 12 Staff

Nov 15, 2021, 10:24 PM

Updated 1,064 days ago

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Parents and educators are taking advantage of a perk that gets their kids vaccinated and helps provide more funding to their child’s school.
The city sends the organizations $100 for every person they refer who gets the vaccine. There are 162 parent teacher organizations citywide that are participating in this program and have completed over 6,000 referrals to date.
Parents lined up with their children for a mobile vaccine bus parked outside the doors of P.S. 9 Monday. Many of them gave their school as a reference to get the benefit.
So far, the parent teacher organization at P.S. 9 in Prospect Heights has completed 98 referrals--providing the organization with $9,800.
The president of the organization says the funds are needed.
"Our kids have missed so much in terms of enrichment programming, so our school is paying for robotics classes for our upper classmen, our Spanish yoga for our Pre-K students, our gardening programming,” the president says. “We spent $1,500 buying voice amplifiers for our teaching staff so the kids can hear them even though they’re wearing masks."
Parents on Monday said they were going to get their kids vaccinated anyway, but having the chance to do so at the school and the ability to get extra funding for their kids’ education was an added bonus.
You don’t have to be a PTA to get this referral bonus. Religious organizations and nonprofits have taken part as well.
To participate, the group just needs to enroll in the referral benefit program.