TODAY we salute Trending In The News’s Jabs Army – our remarkable readers who are helping out in vaccination centres all over the country.
When the NHS and the Royal Voluntary Service were looking for people willing to give their free time to make the jabs rollout happen they turned to Britain’s favourite paper.
Within three weeks 50,000 readers signed up to help.
Tonight we are saying “Thank you” to our Jabs Army. Dozens of volunteers will appear with celebs who backed the effort, such as Ross Kemp, Vernon Kay and Nicola Adams, in an advert that will be screened at around 7.30pm tonight during Ant & Dec’s Saturday Night Takeaway on ITV.
We were blown away by the response when we asked for selfies from our volunteers in action on Jabs Army duty.
We got so many we couldn’t feature them all in the ad so to say thanks to them, we bring you this special pullout with a souvenir poster featuring the faces of many of the volunteers. Hail our helpers by displaying it at your local vaccine centre or in a window at home.
Volunteers seen include former cop Mark Walsh, 36, training to be a train driver, who signed up for Jabs Army work in Portsmouth and Southampton, where he became pals with ex-ferry captain Michael Bechley.
Mark says: “There will be lessons to be learned from the pandemic but the vaccinations are the real success here.”
Angad Shukla, 33, from London, says: “Being a vaccine volunteer you spread love everywhere you go.”
His sentiments were echoed by hairdresser Denise McGirl, 59, who helped out in Bedford and says: “You’re bringing hope.”
Bank worker Balbir Singh Gohler, 54, helps in Brighton. He says: “Volunteering has been the best antidote to the year-long paralysis that has dominated lives.”
Fiona Young, 44, from Bromley, South East London, helps out at the capital’s Science Museum centre.
She says: “I’ve met so many people who are going above and beyond to get everyone vaccinated.”
Married couple Anne and Michael Camden, 54, and 49, respectively, volunteer at Thame, Oxon. She says: It’s a fabulous feeling being part of a brilliant effort.”
Debbie Flint, 58, helped at the Epsom racecourse centre and says: “Being a Jabs Army volunteer is a badge of honour I’m proud to wear.”
Paul Davis, 49, from Manchester says: “I wanted to help with the national effort to lift this dark cloud.”
Stephen Kirk, 62, volunteers at Derby’s velodrome and says: “Being here has made me so proud to be part of the amazing effort to help the NHS.”
The jab’em family
BEING in the Jabs Army is a family affair for volunteer Debbie Flint, who appears in tonight’s ad on ITV.
She was chosen for the commercial after sending in a selfie of her weekly Tuesday night stint at Epsom Racecourse in Surrey, where she cleans 300 chairs in a four-hour shift.
Sun reader Debbie started volunteering in a GP-run vaccination hub in the grandstand after a panic call from her sister Linda Bignall, 56.
Debbie, 58, who is a presenter on the QVC shopping channel, says: “Linda is the one who should be praised.
“She’s been furloughed from her job as a spa manager and jumped at the chance to join the Jabs Army.
“Linda volunteered and the following week she called me and said: ‘I went along and I just felt really useful. It was such a lovely atmosphere and it was very satisfying to help.’
“Early on, it was the very old people and some of them were sitting there in tears because they were so pleased to be there.
“As they were waiting in the line at reception, people’s excitement was tangible.”
When the centre, which vaccinates 700 people a day, needed more volunteers, Linda recruited her brother Glenn, 46, and sister-in-law Bojana who both work from home.
