Miami Gardens Residents Gather To Remember

Miami FL

16 December, 2021

9:17 AM

Description

By Johania Charles, Miami Times Staff Writer, the Miami Times Dec 14, 2021 With an LED candle in the air and her head held low, Irma Stone joined a crowd of faith leaders and churchgoers in a moment of silence Sunday evening for those who died of COVID-19. It also was a moment of reflection and gratitude for Stone as she thought about how her nephew, 53-year-old Terrell Dandy, survived the virus after being on a ventilator for more than 40 days. "We know many people that lost their lives but never thought that it would hit so close to home," said Stone at the interfaith candlelight ceremony and prayer vigil at Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex. Led by Live Healthy Miami Gardens (LHMG) in partnership with the city and nine congregations, the vigil closed out a weeklong effort to increase vaccination rates for both COVID-19 and influenza shots during National Influenza Vaccination Week, which ended Saturday. Miami Gardens residents, church members and leaders gather at Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex for a candlelight and prayer vigil to honor lives lost to COVID. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) LHMG, a coalition of more than 40 organizations created seven years ago and funded by the Health Foundation of South Florida, aims to reduce poor health outcomes in Miami Gardens, the largest Black municipality in South Florida. Free flu shots at the newly opened JTCHS Barbara J. Jordan Community Health & Wellness Center and the Center for Family & Child Enrichment – both are COVID-19 vaccine sites – kicked off LHMG's awareness and vaccination effort before a wellness webinar and finally, the vigil, where booster shots were available for interested parties. Following a prayer vigil for COVID victims, Ronnie Wallace, pastor of Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, gets the Pfizer booster shot at Betty T. Ferguson Recreational Complex. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) Health experts say COVID-19 and the flu can spread more rapidly in the fall and winter months, with flu season hitting its peak in December. The events came as the omicron variant made landfall in Florida, with one of the state's three cases having been identified in Miami according to the mayor's office. Local 10 News reported that the county's first omicron case was contracted by an unvaccinated patient. Through the Florida Department of Health, the county has reported a daily positivity rate of 4%, with an average of 84 cases per day. County leaders and the World Health Organization (WHO) are encouraging people to take extra precautions beyond just mask-wearing or vaccines in the face of a variant WHO says is spreading faster than previous strains. "As a nurse practitioner, I know the importance of making sure that we educate and provide access once the vaccine became available, so we've been doing a lot of work around that and want to continue it moving forward," said Cheryl Coleman, director of health and wellness for the Florida General Baptist Convention and a 30-year health care veteran. "I planned this [vigil] because faith is also important in helping us maneuver through sickness and the pandemic. Regardless of your faith, the church is one place that people are going to come to because it's where they feel safe, so it was important to work with the clergy and allow people to hear stories about COVID." Stone was one of many people to share stories of her family's personal encounter with the coronavirus to remind Miami Gardens residents not to dismiss the serious and – in many cases – life-threatening consequences of COVID-19. Irma Stone, a member of Breakthrough International Christian Center, recounts her nephew's contraction of COVID at a candlelight vigil organized by Live Healthy Miami Gardens. (Johania Charles for The Miami Times) She said the odds did not look good for Dandy, who had not been vaccinated. In July, he contracted the virus, which manifested in symptoms he originally thought pointed to a sinus infection. A hospital visit yielded confirmation of a positive test and he was sent home with medication, according to Stone. Just two days later, Dandy was admitted into the intensive care unit, where he remained for about two months. "The whole family was just devastated," continued Stone, describing how helpless Dandy's loved one's felt. "What do you do when despair sinks in? We knew whatever God's will was, it would be done. We were talking about [Dandy's situation] and said it [didn't] look good. I had one of those talks with [God] and asked him to have mercy." Stone disclosed to vigil attendees that other family members also contracted COVID-19 but had not been as ill as Dandy. Burley Knowles, Stone and Dandy's pastor, shared insight into the loss Breakthrough International Christian Center experienced as a result of the pandemic, revealing a conversation he had with one of his deacons. "He said, 'Pastor, this is the 14th person that I've lost in less than six months,'" Knowles told the crowd. "My wife and I are fortunate that her mom is still alive, my mother and father are still alive, while some folks are losing parents … It's overwhelming to him and to those of us that are trying to comfort [others] during that time of loss. You're at a point where you can't really say you know what they've been through if you don't really know what they've been through." Anthony Johnson from Love Fellowship Ministries, who received the single-shot Johnson & Johnson vaccine, had the worst of the symptoms when he tested positive earlier this year. "This was the worst thing that I've experienced in my so many years of living. This thing knocked me out of my faith," he said, recalling having chills, a bad cough, loss of taste and smell, and extreme dehydration. "I was so dehydrated that the nurses couldn't draw blood. I had to sit there and drink water for almost an hour just so they could draw blood. My wife also got COVID, too, but had pneumonia with it … My doctor said 'Thank God at your age you took the shot.' I had to do two funerals for my friends." Every testimony shared during the vigil supported the belief that faith and science can in fact go hand in hand. "I believe in the divine healing [power] of God but I also believe God heals through medical science," said Ronnie Wallace, pastor of Greater New Bethel Baptist Church, before getting the Pfizer booster shot at the event. "We just thank God for indwelling the scientists to come up with the vaccine … When we take it we still trust God to do what only [he] can do." "Indeed," said Father Horace Ward of Holy Family Episcopal Church in agreement, "we have come this far by faith." The Miami Times is the largest Black-owned newspaper in the south serving Miami's Black community since 1923. The award-winning weekly is frequently recognized as the best Black newspaper in the country by the National Newspaper Publishers Association.