At St. Armands Key Lutheran Church, Director of Operations and Minister of Music Michael Bodnyk worked with church leaders to get a vaccine clinic organized for “quite a while,” he said. A parishioner who worked at Hedges HealthMart Pharmacy in Sarasota made a connection, and the pharmacy offered to supply and administer vaccines and handle registration for an event at the church.
“In our demographic of parishioners, there are a lot of older people with compromised immune systems. Getting the vaccine was important to a lot of them,” Bodnyk said. “Obviously, we wanted to be helpful in any way we could.”
Though social calendars don t fill up as they used to in the era of COVID-19, the St. Armands Key Lutheran Church has found a way to bring members and new friends together two Sundays a month.
The church held another one of its garden concerts on March 7, inviting anyone eager to get out of the house for an afternoon to the tranquil space beside the church for an hour of live music. Director of Music Michael Bodnyk has been organizing free outdoor concerts with local bands since late summer in an attempt to provide a safe space for members and residents to mingle once more.