Hosting a community-wide vaccination clinic attended by several thousand residents at a time can be like planning for and hosting multiple weddings in one week. Staff and volunteers at the Community Vaccination Site at Lumen Field have to be ready for every possible scenario and no one more so than Clinic Event Manager and Finance and Administrative Services Employee Meredith Stone.
Meredith serves as event manager of the site and is responsible for ensuring everything runs smoothly. In her day job, she serves as the event manager for Seattle City Hall events, overseeing everything from City Council press conferences, demonstrations, cultural events, large internal business meetings and celebrations and blood drives. We sat down with Meredith to learn about her work and how she applies her expertise to helping manage the largest civilian-led mass vaccination site in the country.
How would you describe your job?
Since things can be evolving all the time as we scale up or tweak things to make them better, I’m constantly working to ensure changes are in place, things are in order, and helping to get everyone ready. Throughout the day, my work could be on anything from a medical event to someone needing housekeeping or crowd control. I’m a main point of contact for non-clinical and clinical staff and volunteers, and the FAS liaison for security, SPD & traffic control, SFD medics, and Lumen staff. Other event-related projects include working with the City’s ADA team on site compliance, Metro on transportation options, and IT on AV needs.
FAS employee Meredith Stone serves as the event manager of the Community Vaccination Site at Lumen Field.
This work is like planning and throwing a wedding every day. You always know something is going to come up, you just don’t know what, so you have to be as prepared as possible.
What do you like about your job?
I like being around people again! I like that people are happy to be working here, and that I can be part of something that is moving us forward and out of this pandemic. And I really like being part of this team. A special example, a patient stopped me on her way out today and she was emotional. She said she was so impressed with how we were running things and she teared up and wanted me to know how deeply appreciative she was. Sometimes things can be so busy each day that I feel like I’m in a pinball machine. And when she stopped me, it was like a pause to remember what we’re doing here and what it means.
What’s the hardest part?
Really just the pace. Things are moving so fast and sometimes all at once. We often say we’re flying the plan as we build it. I just try really hard to make sure our structure is in place, and that we’re staying tight and working like a well-oiled machine.
How do you feel about the role you are in and the fact you’re managing one of the largest mass vaccination sites in the country?
I feel really proud to be part of it. And I feel very grateful for the opportunity. I’ve always done events and programs so, on one hand, it’s just the next thing I’m doing. But my Aunt in Iowa saw something in the national news on Lumen and it just reminds me this is a big deal. And what we’re doing here, it’s not just an event. We’re giving people hope and helping them hold onto hope. And we’re helping people not get sick from this thing and that feels so big. When I let myself pause and feel it, I do feel emotional and I’m really proud of the City, of myself and our team. It’s special we pulled this off. And it’s historical, it’s something we’ll all remember and be proud to have been a part of because this is helping us get through this pandemic so we can see friends and loved ones again.
What are you most looking forward to when COVID is over?
A big thing is just being able see and be with two very good friends of mine who are in their 70s. They’re basically my kid’s grandparents and we’ve missed them. And hugging! I like to hug my friends and will be happy to do that again. And finally, just seeing my daughter be able to see her friends again. She’s 10 and I don’t think I’ll know how this pandemic has really affected her for a while. She had to go back to in-person school recently and she was really freaked out at first and scared to be in a building with so many people because of the virus. I was so sad to see that. But when she came back from her first day of classes, she was like “that was the best day ever.” Hearing that was an important message to me that she’s going to be OK, that we’re going to get through this, and we’ll be stronger for it.