This Mississippi woman is truly a “Boss Lady!”
Pam Chatman, the owner of Boss Lady Workforce Transportation, realized that her community in Cleveland, Mississippi was in dire need of transportation services to get their COVID vaccines.
Registering for the vaccine online wasn’t an option, as high-speed Internet is hard to come by in the rural American South.
So, Chatman came up with an idea that was truly “boots on the ground” in its nature.
“We know here in rural Mississippi, a lot of places here do not have internet. So, it was difficult for them to register,” she said, according to The Atlanta Black Star. “We are now going into Black communities taking mobile facilities there and actually meeting the people and serving the people where they are. We’re going into their communities, into their churches, and providing them the vaccine.”
The Mississippi woman expanded her transportation company, Boss Lady Workforce Transportation Services, to include taking people to their vaccine appointments. Boss Lady Workforce Transportation Services not only provides transportation to vaccination sites, but hosts pop-ups, educates locals about the vaccine, and provides home vaccination visits.
Collectively, then, this is known as the VTI, or the Vaccine Transportation Initiative.
And according to SuperTalk Mississippi, this Mississippi woman’s one-woman initiative has helped create a direct economic impact of $30 million directly for the Mississippi Delta. Thus far, 60 people in her community have been vaccinated, and she’s also raised over $30,000 in donations. And she’s hoping that this will help the vaccination rollout be much easier for the Delta region, going forward.
But while Chatman is being extolled for her virtue — one customer calls her the “Mother Teresa of the Mississippi” — she takes it all in stride.
“I just want to give because there are so many people who are afraid to ask for the things they need,” she said.
