September 7, 2021
Two Fayetteville Technical Community College students and two FTCC employees have earned cash prizes for receiving COVID-19 vaccine does.
The student winners each won $500 in cash for getting the first dose of the two-dose Pfizer vaccine on Aug. 17 on FTCC’s Fayetteville campus. The two College employees were chosen from the pool of FTCC employees who either got their first dose of the vaccine on Aug. 17 or who had previously shared with the College that they were vaccinated against COVID.
Four more drawings will be held after the follow-up vaccine clinic held on Sept. 7.
The winners from the first round of prize drawings are: students Jasmine Collings and James “Kenneth” Gilliam and employees Laurice Barlow and Carol Barker.
Jasmine Collings
Jasmine Collings
Collings is pursuing her associate degree in general education. The 19-year-old wants to work as a daycare teacher. She graduated from Cape Fear High School in 2019.
“I’m good with little kids, and I get along with them better than adults,” Collings said jokingly.
Collings knew that students who participated in the vaccine clinics held on campus in August and September would receive $50 for each shot. She didn’t know about the grand prize until she received a call naming her a winner.
“I said, ‘Wait. What? Say that again?’” Collings recalled. “Then, I said, ‘Thank you, Lord! I plan on giving $200 to Epicenter Church and using the rest for Christmas shopping this year.’”
Collings said she wanted to get the vaccine before it could possibly become mandatory. The cash reward was another incentive.
“And I want to visit my foster parents for Thanksgiving, and they won’t allow anyone in their house without it,” she said. “And I want to travel overseas, and some places won’t allow visitors unless they’re vaccinated.”
Kenneth Gilliam
Gilliam said he was unaware of the raffle until one of his instructors texted him. He knew about the $50 for each of the Pfizer shots that students received at the on-campus clinics in August and September.
“I was shocked because I didn’t know about the $500,” the 25-year-old admitted. “I’ve used some money to take my fiancée out to eat, and the rest I’ll use when gas prices go up.”
Gilliam is in his fourth semester at FTCC as a student in the physical therapy assistant program. He chose that track because he believes in healing through exercise. He’s been in and out of physical therapy the last five years because of ankle surgery and an ACL repair. He played soccer while attending Mt. Olive University, earning a bachelor’s in exercise science, before attending FTCC.
“I feel treatment through exercise is very valuable because if you stop moving, you’ll lose it,” he said. “Physical therapy is what has gotten me to where I am now, and the FTCC program was the closest around.”
Gilliam chose to get vaccinated against COVID-19 after talking with his fiancée who works as a nurse in an intensive care unit at a hospital. He’s heard about patients hooked up to ventilators to help them breathe and about people who don’t know if they’ll ever again get to see a hospitalized loved one in person. He said a close friend of his had a similar experience with her mom who thankfully overcame the effects of COVID-19.
“That’s the reason I got vaccinated, and my fiancée is vaccinated, too,” he said. “I would not want to see a family member go through that.”
Gilliam believes those stories should be enough reason for anyone to receive the vaccine.
“You don’t want that to be you or to see your family that way,” he added.
Laurice Barlow
Barlow works as a retention specialist in the Academic Assessment & Placement Testing Center on the College’s Fayetteville campus. She began working at FTCC in February 2020, a few weeks before the world started learning about COVID-19. She explained why she received the vaccine nearly a year later.
“Because of my age, I felt like I should get it, and it has a lot to do with health reasons,” she said.
Barlow learned about that she’d won $500 through a voicemail. She was at the beach with her husband on vacation when she missed the call.
“I couldn’t believe it,” Barlow recalled about learning she was a winner.
Prior to FTCC, Barlow worked as an administrative assistant for 15 years in the arts and humanities department at Methodist University.