South San Francisco, CA November 9, 2021 Press Release
The San Mateo County Event Center is pleased to announce its recognition by the California Department of Food and Agriculture for their work supporting San Mateo County during COVID-19.
“The California Department of Food and Agriculture would like to acknowledge the amazing work by your organization in response to the COVID-19 pandemic, said Karen Ross, Secretary of the California Department of Food and Agriculture.
“For the last 18 months, your team has worked in its own unique way with local health authorities to regather your community by providing events in the safest manner possible. CDFA extends a special “thank you” to management and staff for your assistance in executing “Blueprint for a Safer Economy” that has helped bring our communities back together. Your fair has demonstrated best practices for your community by being a beacon of safety, courage, and perseverance.”
Rather than closing its doors during the pandemic, the San Mateo County Event Center and Fairgrounds swung its doors wide open and became one of the nation’s leaders in county-wide COVID testing and vaccination, recently opening yet another building exclusively for kids 5-11 to receive their COVID vaccines.
“We’re honored to receive this recognition,” said Dana Stoehr, CEO of the Event Center. “While most people think of us as an event center and fairgrounds, the fact is that we are a leader in the community for 365 days a year. Converting the Event Center into an COVID response hub was only natural for us.”
For almost a solid year, the fairgrounds have been open for storing anti-COVID PPE and emergency materials, rapid testing of people, and vaccinations as soon as they’ve become available. The San Mateo Event Center remains open for both vaccinations and regular events throughout the year, with many more public events being hosted before years end.
ABOUT THE SAN MATEO COUNTY EVENTS CENTER: For the past year, the San Mateo County Events Center has been unable to host most events, but instead played a vital role in protecting our health care workers and most vulnerable populations by serving as a COVID-19 testing site, operations hub and supply center, 250-bed temporary overflow hospital, and vaccine distribution center for the San Francisco Bay Area. To date, the Event Center has administered 250,000 COVID-19 tests and vaccinated more than 90,000 individuals. Visit our website at https://www.smchealth.org/covidvaccine to stay up to date regarding our most up to date COVID-19 Vaccine information.
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