The White House Coronavirus Task Force has just designated Kansas as a COVID-19 “Red Zone.” Two weeks ago, it placed central Illinois counties on alert. Volunteer Ministers of the Church of Scientology Kansas City are working to bring the pandemic under control by educating the community on prevention.

Volunteer Ministers from the Church of Scientology of Kansas City are tackling COVID-19 with education.

“We are all in this together,” says the lead KC Volunteer Minister. “By applying proven principles of prevention, we can get through the pandemic and move on.”

In May, the volunteers distributed thousands of educational booklets to local businesses,  churches, and nonprofits so they could in turn provide them to those they serve. And they’ve visited hundreds of households to make sure people have what they need and know how to keep themselves and their families and friends well.

The Church of Scientology has published three booklets containing the basic principles of prevention: How to Keep Yourself & Others Well, How to Protect Yourself & Others with a Mask & Gloves and How to Prevent the Spread of Illness with Isolation. These can be read online or downloaded free of charge in 21 languages at the How to Stay Well Prevention Resource Center on the Scientology website, where more than a dozen videos make the subject easy to understand and apply. 

“I really loved handing out these booklets,” said one of the volunteers. “Everyone was so appreciative.”

“People need this information,” said the public outreach representative of the KC Fire Department about the booklets he received on behalf of the firefighters. They have to respond to fires no matter what and it is vital for them to know how to protect themselves and their families from infection.

A minister who is active in the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce was about to join a Zoom conference when the volunteers came by to bring him copies of booklets. He told them he was concerned about his parishioners—language can be such a barrier to understanding. He was thrilled that the volunteers brought him copies in English and Spanish and found them so informative he wanted to present them to the dozens of Hispanic leaders he would be joining in the conference.

“We met with one pastor who had many questions about personal health,” said the lead volunteer. “He was impressed to see that all of his questions were answered in the booklets. He found the information on isolation very helpful because it shows people how they can stop the spread of the virus.”

“You can tell it means a lot to people that we are going out to their homes just to help them,” said a Volunteer Minister. “One woman with three kids was looking for a way to educate her youngest on how he could take care of himself. She was so happy to have the booklet to give him.”

A car pulled up and two teenage boys asked the volunteers why they were going door-to-door. When they showed them the booklets the boys lit right up. One of them asked for five copies for his friends. He was really happy someone was looking out for his neighborhood.

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Distribution of the educational booklets began in May in communities around Scientology Churches and Missions across the globe. The Church of Scientology International Dissemination and Distribution Center made this possible by printing and shipping 5 million copies of Stay Well booklets.

The Church of Scientology Volunteer Ministers program is a religious social service created in the mid-1970s by Scientology Founder L. Ron Hubbard. It constitutes one of the largest and most visible international independent relief forces. A Volunteer Minister’s mandate is to be “a person who helps his fellow man on a volunteer basis by restoring purpose, truth and spiritual values to the lives of others.” Their creed: “A Volunteer Minister does not shut his eyes to the pain, evil and injustice of existence. Rather, he is trained to handle these things and help others achieve relief from them and new personal strength as well.”