The Provocateurs Cohort (Florida)

In her own words:

“I live in a rural community, with mostly conservative voices at the table. While our public health and government officials carried out the duties of their elected positions, followed the guidance as issued by the governor, and heard public opinion, the majority were adamantly opposed to mask mandates, closures, and abiding by social distancing recommendations, particularly at the onset on the pandemic. There were even protests on the day of the first vote on a mask mandate in public places. The few of those who supported swifter and stricter community action were met with jeers and public ridicule.” 

“Even with this very vocal opposition, a small group of us forged ahead. Digging through the research, creating public and private channels of communication, building relationships with area public health workers and medical providers, and sharing heavily moderated (for bias and accuracy) content on social media, including statistics we garnered from public sources and our own efforts at data collection and analysis.”

“Since this undertaking our small community group has grown. Providers and health officials share testing and vaccine info to our group Facebook page, people are able to engage in dialogue without bias or motive, and we are able to share infection and mortality data, resources, and information as we become aware of it through our piecing together of information from the few available channels. While we have faced opposition coupled with alarming Covid rates, we have developed a fairly moderated, inclusive and reliable resource for our small community.”

“I say all of this to say, that any effort moving forward to harness control of the virus and repair damaged public trust, government officials would be remiss to not consider the impact these grass roots level community coalitions could play in addressing this crisis.”

A few words from those who nominated Sara:

“Over the last year, Sara has worked tirelessly to keep her community informed about the on-going coronavirus pandemic. Since July of 2020, she has voluntarily co-administered a Facebook group to share resources and updates with citizens in her rural county, with a particular emphasis on communicating factual, evidence-based information to help her neighbors make informed decisions during this crisis. Not without adversity, she has fairly and transparently enforced the rules of the group to protect her community from the rampant misinformation that has abounded in other venues of discourse. When her city council took up a local face-covering mandate, Sara called into the public meeting to advocate on behalf of the measure and encourage our local leaders to look to the scientific evidence that supported it. She has done all of this while balancing the duties of her job and her responsibilities as a mother, and she truly deserves to be recognized for her heroic work in her community.”

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