LOS ANGELES — Our local street vendors are usually known for hawking some of the best food and most diverse trinkets in the city, but thanks to a recent program, some vendors are joining the fight against COVID-19 by encouraging others in their communities to get vaccinated. 

What You Need To Know

  • Thanks to a recent program, some vendors are joining the fight against COVID by encouraging others in their communities to get vaccinated

  • The vendor community has been among the slowest group in the city to get vaccinated, so vendors like Mario Ramos have been eager to help

  • Community development and street vendor advocacy group Inclusive Action reached out to Ramos and other vendors to ask if they would be ambassadors for their vaccine program

  • As ambassadors, the vendors hand out the flyers and point people to where they can get more accurate information or where they can find vaccine centers

On any given weekend, you’ll find Mario Ramos selling his homemade ice cream on a bustling corner of the piñata district, near downtown. It’s a loud, busy street, but his booming voice cuts through.

“Ice cream! Ice cream! Nieves de mango, de coco!” Ramos called out on one recent day.

With each cup of ice cream he hands out, he passes along a COVID-19 vaccination flyer with facts and resources for the community to get the vaccine. Speaking in Spanish, Ramos explains what the flyers say.

“In this flyer they’re explaining that kids 12 and older can get vaccinated. And they have the phone numbers, marked here,” said Ramos.

The vendor community has been among the slowest group in the city to get vaccinated, so Ramos (who is vaccinated, along with his whole family) wanted to help. Local community development and street vendor advocacy group Inclusive Action reached out to Ramos, as well as a dozen other vendors, to ask if they would be ambassadors for their vaccine program. Ramos agreed immediately.

As ambassadors, the vendors are only required to hand out the flyers and point people to where they can get more accurate information or where they can find vaccine centers. But Ramos says people sometimes come to him expressing their hesitations, and he’ll use his own story to assuage their fears.

“[I tell them] I’m part of those who are already vaccinated, my family was vaccinated, and not to be scared, that it’s better for us to return to normality and that we should participate.”

Karina Guzman, who is part of the team at Inclusive Action, says having hyper-localized vaccine ambassadors like Ramos is crucial for the Latin and vending community. They were hit hard by COVID, tend to be more vaccine-hesitant and often lack resources in their native language.

“He is able to relate to them, his customers, in their native language and they’re able to relate to him and see themselves as part of his community,” Guzman pointed out.

She adds that the program, to date, has been a success because the vendors are so enthusiastic about their roles as vaccine ambassadors. 

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“Our clients have taken it upon themselves to not just outreach to their customers, but also people that they see at the park, people that they see at their children's school,” Guzman said. “I talk to my clients monthly, and they ask me, ‘Can I have more flyers? I ran out of the 300 flyers you gave me.'”

As Ramos scoops ice cream, he told Spectrum News 1 that he considers it his honor to act as a vaccine ambassador in his community. He likes to leave people with an inspiring line, along with their cup of ice cream.

“We have to do this for this beautiful country, for this beautiful life, for this beautiful community, we have to do it,” he said.

For more information about the vaccine ambassador program, visit inclusiveaction.org.