Meet
the Long Covid Ambassadors
Meet Jayme Bond (left) and Elsa Flores (right), Ambassadors providing Long Covid peer-based support and advocacy.
The Long COVID Ambassadors Initiative at Vital CxNs launched in 2023, as our focus evolved from ensuring equitable access to testing, vaccines, and PPE to addressing the overlooked impact of Long Covid on Boston’s most marginalized communities. This work began in partnership with Boston Medical Center’s Massachusetts Community Engagement Alliance (MA-CEAL), which trained a group of Boston residents to serve as Long Covid Ambassadors—trusted messengers providing education, support, and resource referrals to their peers.
Together with MA-CEAL, Vital CxNs integrated these ambassadors into our Community Convo initiative, training them as facilitators to host micro-conversations in trusted community spaces. In just three months, four Long COVID Ambassadors engaged over 180 community members, helping to build understanding and connection around an often misunderstood chronic condition.
As the program grew, ambassadors reflected on the power of their work and identified an opportunity to go deeper by offering individualized, peer-based support on a one-on-one basis. Thanks to support from the Thoracic Foundation, a new phase of the initiative officially launched in June 2025.
To celebrate this launch, Vital CxNs sat down with our two Long COVID Ambassadors to listen to their stories and perspectives on the importance of peer advocacy, including the role it plays in empowering their fellow community members to advocate for the care they need and deserve.
“I don’t have to be the cure of all, but if I can get people on the right path, that’s good enough for me.”
Jayme Bonds proudly shares that she is a native Bostonian who grew up in Roxbury public housing. Driven by her mother's commitment as a Black Caucus member to involve her children, she was exposed from a young age to community work dedicated to bettering people's lives. In fact, she attributes her passion for community work to her upbringing, “I got into this work to pay it forward because I’m a community kid. I was raised by the community.”
With this foundation, Jayme grew up to continue serving her community by working in hospitals, daycares, and voter registration, eventually settling into a now decades-long career in public housing.
Jayme got involved with the Long COVID Ambassador program because when the COVID-19 Pandemic hit, she observed the fear, helplessness, and mistrust around this unprecedented public health threat within her community and became determined to do something about it.
In her own words, “Growing up, or even when I was raising my kids, I didn’t have a lot of knowledge of a lot of things, but I’m a digger. I’m going to find out!”
She notes that the Long COVID Ambassador Program’s value is in its use of well-known and trusted individuals in the community, like herself, to enhance people’s knowledge and understanding of their health and available resources.
She knows her efforts are making a tangible impact in the community. The people she speaks to often ask her to come back to speak to educate others, and she also notices how their conversations give them the motivation and confidence to talk to their healthcare providers.
Jayme attributes the success of her work to her being from the community and sharing many of the identities and life experiences with the people she works with.
Reflecting on her journey in community organizing and Long COVID advocacy, Jayme says, “I don’t have to be the cure of all, but if I can get people on the right path, that’s good enough for me.”
“I got into this work to pay it forward because I’m a community kid. I was raised by the community.”
Elsa Flores is a first-generation immigrant from El Salvador who has called East Boston her home for 23 years. Like Jayme, Elsa traces the seeds of her passion for working with the community to her mom, who raised her with the guiding principle: “Cuando vamos a brindar un apoyo, un servicio a la gente, a la comunidad, eso viene multiplicado en gran bendición para la vida de nosotros” / “When we support our community, that one act of service multiplies into many blessings in our own lives.”
Upon arriving in the U.S., Elsa found her prior 11 years of experience working as a middle school teacher in El Salvador instrumental in helping her integrate into her new community. Despite a period of being undocumented, she dedicated herself to improving her English and understanding both the American education system and Boston’s diverse communities.
Elsa says she was inspired to become a Long COVID ambassador because of the disproportionate impact the pandemic had on the health, jobs, education, and economic stability of her community. Having experienced symptoms that she didn’t realize were consistent with Long COVID herself, it was life-changing for her to learn about the condition, and she felt it only right to share it with her community. Elsa says she wanted to make this information more accessible, particularly in Spanish, recognizing the vital but often neglected role of language justice in equity.
Elsa challenges the inaccurate perception that her community is unwilling to voice concerns about health or other pressing issues, highlighting the crucial role of trusted messengers. She explains, “En la comunidad, ya sea latina o cualquier comunidad, cuando un desconocido se acerca para ofrecerme cualquier información– y a lo mejor es un gran recurso–cuando yo siento esa desconfianza de una persona que yo no conozco, le digo ‘No gracias, muy amable’” / “In the Latino community, or any community, [the culture is such that] when a stranger approaches to offer me information–and maybe it’s really a great resource–when I feel that lack of trust of a person that I don’t know, I tell them ‘No, thank you.’” In contrast, community members are willing to accept information from familiar faces, like hers, trusting that they would not give them false or harmful information.
Elsa believes the one-on-one model of the Ambassador program “crea un clima de más confianza para que las personas puedan expresar de manera más confiable y hablar sobre su situación específica y comentar sus experiencias con nosotros.” / “[The one-on-one model] creates a climate of greater trust and safety so that people can express themselves in a more trusting way and speak about their specific situations and tell us about their experiences.” Reflecting on her work thus far as a Long COVID Ambassador, she says seeing people’s happiness when she shares information with them in their own language is what keeps her going.
“[The one-on-one model] creates a climate of greater trust and safety so that people can express themselves in a more trusting way”
Vital CxNs’ new Long COVID Ambassador Program has officially launched in the Boston community as of June 2025. To inquire about having the Ambassadors come to your event or community, please contact briana@vitalcxns.org.
Written by Briana Acosta (June 2025)