Several Central Coast organizations came together to put on the first vaccine clinic in Pajaro. The goal was to provide vaccine access to an underserved community. More than 600 people were vaccinated at the first clinic held in Pajaro."Yes, I'm being grateful for this opportunity," Pajaro resident Alicia Jimenez said. Jimenez was one of more than 600 people who got their shots April 16. Her story was like many others who attended the clinic who said they had difficulty finding vaccine opportunities in the rural part of north Monterey County and also had difficulty booking an appointment online."The other you had to use MyTurn and waiting and emailing and looking for an appointment, but this one is very easy," Jimenez said. "Here it's very accessible because only a call and they give me the opportunity to get it."The idea for the clinic all began when the organization Pajaro Valley Prevention and Student Assistance wanted to understand the problem of vaccine access in the rural parts of Monterey and Santa Cruz Counties. The organization began hearing many stories similar to Jimenez's."We surveyed what the vaccination need was for the community out here and we found that over 65 percent of the residents we spoke to had nowhere to get the vaccine and were in need of vaccine," PVPSA CEO Erica Padilla-Chavez said after surveying hundreds of church-goers during Holy Week at Our Lady of the Assumption Church in Pajaro. "We heard that repeatedly so we realized access is an issue. We realized we just needed to create that door."The door ended up being the gym at Pajaro Valley Middle School just down the street from the church. Padilla-Chavez said once they saw the difficulty many were experiencing, they began booking appointments over the phone and found the need was greater than they realized."We started off with the idea of doing 300, then we said no it's gotta be 500, then we were able increase it to 600," Padilla-Chavez said.But she says her organization couldn't have done it alone. She said it was a "partnership" of several organizations that made Friday's clinic a reality.That partnership included Padilla-Chavez's organization performing the community outreach, Santa Cruz County providing the vaccine, Dignity Health administering the vaccine, Granite Construction offering volunteers and the Pajaro Valley Unified School District hosting the sight.Allowing Jimenez others to receive protection that's been elusive."These partnerships is what makes it for these communities," Padilla-Chavez said. "We don't necessarily have the infrastructure, but we have the partnerships."