Neighborhood 'Angel' In McLean Helps Seniors Get Vaccinated

MCLEAN, VA — A McLean resident has become a popular person in her neighborhood and across the region for her ability to get COVID-19 vaccination appointments on websites that other people find excruciatingly difficult to navigate.

Katja Hom helped an immigrant family who speaks Spanish and was having trouble navigating the website get vaccination appointments at a local Safeway. She also helped a 97-year-old woman and her 67-year-old son get appointments.

“I just felt like it’s the right thing to do. I’m not a techie,” Hom said about her willingness to take the time to find appointments for other people. “I’m just someone who was raised to help others. I thought, ‘Let’s give this a try.’”

Her mission to assist her neighbors and others get appointments started with Hom helping her husband get vaccinated.

Hom’s husband, who is 69-years-old, falls into the category that now qualifies to get the vaccine in Virginia. He had registered to get the vaccine with the Fairfax County Health Department in mid-January.

“We registered with the county, and we sat and we waited, and then we waited more,” said Hom, who is younger than her husband and does not fall into any of the categories currently eligible to get the vaccine in Virginia. “In the meantime, pharmacies started opening up.”

After struggling to get her husband a vaccination appointment at a local CVS pharmacy, Hom learned in late February that Safeway had started offering vaccines to people in the 65 and older age group.

Finally, Hom broke through and was able to get her husband an appointment at the McLean Safeway on Old Dominion Drive. He was excited because he could now start making plans to visit his children and grandchildren from a previous marriage who he had seen little of since the start of the pandemic.

And then Hom succeeded in getting a vaccine appointment for her husband’s best friend at another Safeway in the area. “I think Safeway has been flying under the radar compared to the other pharmacies,” she told Patch.

SEE ALSO: How To Get The COVID-19 Vaccine In Virginia

By late February, Hom had been able to get vaccine appointments for neighbors who live on her cul-de-sac in McLean, including a retired pediatrician and a law professor at George Washington University. She also helped a close friend who has cancer get booked for a vaccination at Safeway.

Most people will go on the Safeway vaccination appointment website, not find any available appointments and then quickly give up. Hom, on the other hand, keeps trying until she finds an open slot.

Hom, who came to the United States from Germany in 1994, joked that her success on the Safeway vaccination website may be related to the notion that Germans will try even harder if they are told they cannot do something.

“I just keep clicking over and over and over again, and I run through all the days, all the Safeways and when I’m done. I start over again,” she said. “I’ve booked appointments at all times of the day.”

While hanging out at home together with her husband, Hom said she often has her laptop with her, trying to find vaccination appointments for other people. She said her husband appreciates the long hours she spends on the computer trying to help other people.

Once someone gets an appointment with Safeway, the store will handle the logistics to get the second Pfizer shot. “The moment you get your first shot, they will confirm your second shot appointment at the same place exactly three weeks to the day,” she said.

At local health departments, residents are told to wait a couple weeks to receive an email that will tell when they can schedule their second shot for either the Pfizer or Moderna COVID-19 vaccines.

With her success in getting appointments for neighbors, Hom, a licensed real estate agent in Virginia and D.C., decided to take her efforts step a further. A little over a week ago, Hom posted on Nextdoor that she was available to help people get vaccines.

“If you know of someone who could stand help, maybe an elderly neighbor who lives alone and doesn’t have family around or technology is a bit of a struggle, I am certainly happy to give it a try,” she wrote. “I can’t guarantee anything, but I seem to have gotten pretty good at it.”

Over the past week and a half, Hom has helped more than 30 people get vaccination appointments at Safeways in McLean, Arlington, Vienna and other parts of Northern Virginia.

“I usually have the laptop with me,” she said. “When I have a moment and when someone reaches out, I will work on getting them a vaccine.”

So far, helping the 97-year-old woman has been the most fulfilling for Hom. When she called the woman's home to get information to load into the Safeway appointment registration system, Hom learned that the woman also had immigrated to the United States from Germany, albeit 40 years before Hom.

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Hom said she had a long conversation with the woman, speaking in both English and German. They promised to meet up in person once the pandemic had run its course.

On Nextdoor, the woman’s son spoke highly of Hom’s willingness to help others. “A shoutout to our neighborhood Angel You should be nominated for Women of the Year on Time magazine,” he wrote.

In response to her efforts, Hom also recently received a card and flowers from a woman she had helped get an appointment at Safeway. "You’re a lifesaver, in some ways literally, when you were able to get me the shot," the woman wrote on the card.

Hom grew up in Schwedt, a town in Germany about 75 miles northeast of Berlin near the border with Poland. The town is well-known for two things: a large oil refinery that connects to a Russian natural gas pipeline and as the site of a former East German military prison, Hom said.

Hom said her parents, who still live in Schwedt, created a nurturing household for her and her older brother. "My parents instilled in us that the world does not revolve around just you," she said.