Cleveland Grandparents Turn Kitchen-Table War Stories Into Vaccine Crusade
A new Cleveland nonprofit is betting on memories, not medical charts, to help slow the slide in U.S. vaccination coverage. Grandparents for Vaccines, founded by retired pediatrician Dr. Arthur Lavin of Shaker Heights, is collecting first-person accounts from people who remember polio, measles, and whooping cough in vivid detail. The goal is simple: use those memories to reach parents who are hesitant about shots.
Organizers say the stories, told around kitchen tables and in short online videos, can land in a way clinical data often does not. Hearing a grandparent recall a neighbor who lost a child to polio, they argue, can cut through the noise in a way a graph never will.
As reported by Cleveland.com, the group launched on Grandparents Day 2025 and has already recruited thousands of volunteers who have posted nearly 60 short videos to share their memories. The outlet notes that the effort has no membership fee and relies on personal testimony and community outreach, rather than technical appeals, to connect with families wrestling with vaccine questions.
The Numbers Behind The Push
Public health data help explain why advocates are experimenting with this kind of heart-first approach. The CDC's vaccination dashboards show that by late February 2026, about 17.5% of adults reported receiving the 2025–26 COVID-19 vaccine, a sign of weak booster uptake for the season.
An NCHS data brief points to a longer-term slide, too. It found that 67.1% of adults 65 and older reported having a flu shot in 2024, down from 70.5% in 2019. Public health experts say those few lost percentage points translate into a lot more older adults left vulnerable to severe respiratory illness.
Bringing Grandparents Into The Conversation
The group's strategy is deliberately low-tech and highly personal: amplify elders' recollections of life before modern vaccines to rebuild trust in the shots that changed it. Grandparents for Vaccines says its network represents roughly 67 million grandparents and emphasizes storytelling, local events, and multimedia outreach aimed at parents who may distrust institutional messages.
Kimberly Boller, named the organization's inaugural executive director in February, put it this way in a Rutgers announcement: "Grandparents have a unique and trusted role in families." Boller, who first joined the effort as a volunteer and state leader before stepping into the director role, is focused on building the infrastructure that can support volunteers and expand the campaign's reach.
Local public health groups say those personal stories can open doors, but they are only part of the solution. They argue that community outreach has to move in lockstep with clinic access and school-based programs. Reporting in the region has described varying kindergarten immunization rates in Ohio, and local partners such as school nurses and county clinics are blending data-driven campaigns with one-on-one conversations to try to boost coverage. Cleveland 19 News has highlighted how the grandparents' effort fits into that broader web of community strategies.
Organizers say their ask of grandparents is intentionally modest: share a short memory, join a community conversation or record a two-minute video about what life looked like before vaccines were routine. For those who want in, resources and volunteer sign-up details are available on the group's website.
